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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23409604">A Night Stolen in the Undertavern</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/nanumi/pseuds/nanumi'>nanumi</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Divinity: Original Sin (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>18+, Cannibalism, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Demonic Possession, Divinity: Original Sin 2 - Freeform, Drug Abuse, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Ifan Ben-Mezd - Freeform, Ifan Ben-Mezd/Sebille - Freeform, Novelization, Recreational Drug Use, Redeemed Ben Solo, Sex, Supernatural Elements</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 05:20:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>33,742</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23409604</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/nanumi/pseuds/nanumi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Originally posted to ff.net. During a lull in the carnage and chaos, Sebille and Ifan steal away to work out some personal grudges regarding their shared history. Moreover, can bonds of trust and friendship flourish under the pressures of a burgeoning new relationship, especially when histories and alliances collide?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ifan Ben-Mezd/Sebille</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. A Night Stolen in the Undertavern</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>[A/N: Happy quarantine, to those of us in lockdown who are bored, horny, and into DOS:2, here ya go. WARNING that the chronology is all over the place in terms of what the characters know/don't know about the ongoing canonical in-game events, and I'm editing for tense and spelling [chapters complete 9/14] so if you like it, leave a comment or fav and be aware that I'm working on these issues; this whole thing has been borne of cabin fever and spring fever coinciding for me. Without further ado, on with this deeply problematic and smutty fic heavily featuring our favourite vengeful goth elf assassin, and Lucian's suicide bomber who genocided her people and homeland. You have been warned.]</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>[UPDATE: 25/03/2020: This piece of writing is growing beyond my control. At this stage, I cannot eat more than once per day, and my dreams and the DOS:2 world are merging seamlessly. All I can hold onto is this one goal; I must be able to canonically justify the elements explored within this work within reasonable doubt. Therefore, the next few chapters are going to take a lot longer to plan, research and write up properly than the pre-existing ~23k words I've already got. Expect this smut-show to turn into a pathetically earnest love epic by around chapter 25-30, which you should look forward to in the next couple of weeks, with my current trajectory and potential future research time factored in, during which I''ll be embellishing upon and tidying up bits of the chapters that are already up. The lockdown continues, and so shall we.]<br/>[UPDATE: 01/04/2020: The world is a joke. Hello, ao3! This is a new platfom to be, so do be friendly and leave me kudos if you like it! So, sadly I managed to lose about ~3,000 words in a file corruption (those still happen?!) and therefore I have to re-write and edit that section. Keep yer eyes peeled like li'l grapes.]</p><p>[<strong>Reapers Coast</strong>]</p><p>Their initial impression of the island upon which they'd struck was obscured by the bilious, reeking smog, which suffused the island with piscine putrescence. Smattered along the shoreline, as far as the mist permitted them to behold, were piles upon piles of tainted aquatic corpses, their skin, scales and spines glinting greenly in the sickly threads of sunlight, which slunk through the fog as if reluctant to bear witness to the wretched scene.</p><p>Disembarking the small row-boat, three of the team of travelling Godwoken plugged their noses, Sebille retching lightly at the sight of the slimy shoreline and picking her way through the gelatinous tide-line, grimacing. Ifan tried to keep a straight face, but his watering eyes gave him away as he padded after the shadow of the elven woman, heading up the beach with some haste, trying to put distance between himself and the mounds of reeking gore. Lohse followed, her face a picture of disgust, sweeping her thick red hair across her mouth and nose in an attempt to block out the stench.<br/>Only Fane's cowled and robed form, his features indistinguishable beneath the layers of armour and cloth, seemed to be unaffected by the olfactory disadvantages of their environs. He stood tall, scanning the shoreline before he disembarked and walked briskly over to where they'd all assembled, shuffling their feet and awaiting conference.</p><p>They huddled in a loose-knit circle, heads bent, their eyes meeting with the question within all of their minds at that moment: 'what next?'</p><p>(<strong>CHAPTER 1: FIRST NIGHT IN THE UNDERTAVERN</strong>)</p><p>Whilst the other members of the party were distracted by the gossip and hustle of the tavern, Sebille quietly shadowed Effie the Innkeeper, stepping softly with keen eyes, keeping her distance as she kept in Effie's blind spot.</p><p>No-one was paying the slightest attention to her slight form and understated movements amidst the rowdy roar of the packed throng, it being payday in those parts, and therefore the centre of much intoxicated merriment. Somewhere amidst the centre of the fray, Ifan dealt a hand of cards before throwing back the dregs of his drink and quickly casting an eye around in an attempt to ascertain the whereabouts of his compatriots.</p><p>He was sure they'd all been together at the bar a moment ago, where he could still vaguely see Fane hunched at a table by the wall several feet away, engrossed in a scroll, but time had perhaps begun to slip away a little. Looking down at his hand of cards, Ifan noticed that the glass he had drained mere seconds ago had ben refilled, as if from nowhere.</p><p>'How many times has that happened tonight?' he wondered, deciding to leave the glass where it was rather than continue his session. Betting low and cashing out for a modest sum at the end of the hand, Ifan at last spotted Sebille shadowing Effie; by this point the elf was directly behind the dwarf, who was reaching up for a glass left on the bar. Ifan almost laughed, the image before him seeming almost slapstick. The whippet-thin shadowy elf loomed over the stout hearty dwarvern woman, and he was just in time - or was that just too late? - to see Sebille deftly cut the cord attaching Effie's keys to her robes, swinging them silently into her own pocket.</p><p>Sebille quickly checked around to see if anyone had witnessed her theft, and her eyes met Ifan's across the tumultuous mass of rowdy drinkers. One of his eyebrows quirked amusedly, and Sebille blinked once, slow and cat-like, with a languid smirk twisting her elfin features before she seemed to melt into the crowd. When she reappeared a moment later halfway up the stairs, her eyes were still locked on him. He saw her beckon once to him before snapping her fingers and turning to ascend further. Ifan felt the colour rise to his face as he realised, too late, exactly what was going on here.</p><p>Hastily downing the entirety of the contents of the glass before him in a sudden change of heart, he stood suddenly, slamming his hands down on the rough wooden tabletop rather harder than he'd meant to, feeling the cumulative force of the cheap liquor in a rush as the room spun madly for a second. No-one batted an eye as he half strode, half lurched away from the card table, another florid-faced man taking his chair almost before he'd vacated it.</p><p>Bidding his drinking comrades a gruff farewell, Ifan made a beeline for where he'd last seen Sebille, muttering 'excuse me's' to the lolling patrons as he reeled past them too closely.. He bounded up the stairs in twos, not fast enough to see which of the various suites Sebille had entered, and stood for a moment on the landing, unsure and quite abashed, the plush red carpet - so ubiquitous to mid-range lodging houses - yielding gently beneath his heavy, mud-encrusted boots, and he scuffed at them awkwardly, noticing his own contrastingly tattered state anew.</p><p>Hearing a whispery chuckle issuing from behind the door closest to him, Ifan uncertainly moved towards it, his hand slowly reaching for the handle before he felt a light tap on his shoulder. Spinning around in embarrassed alarm, Ifan felt a combination of surprise and relief as he saw Sebille standing before him.</p><p>She smirked, neither kindly nor unkindly, and said nothing, just stared unflinchingly into his face, taking in the feral eyes and the shadows beneath them; the crooked scar on his cheek, on the same side as hers yet jagged, imprecise. Her hands found his, eyes still locked onto his face, and she brought them up to her mouth and gently licked the underside of his right-hand wrist, not breaking his gaze but seeming to resolve herself in some indefinable way.</p><p>He briefly wondered about the whispery chuckle, but Sebille was already leading him along down the hallway, pushing him into a sumptuously decorated room hung with tapestries and oil paintings depicting various severe looking dwarves and ancient battles. The four-poster bed in the centre of the room, Ifan noted with relief, was definitely human sized. Closing the solid wooden door behind them and quietly using the pilfered keys to lock it behind them, Sebille took a deep breath before leading the way to the bed. She pulled aside the heavy, red velvet curtains which enclosed the bed and sat down, gesturing for Ifan to join her. He assented, before breaking into a smile and asking her, "Sebille, what kind of scheme have you got going on now?"</p><p>She winces slightly, seeming to chew on the word she spoke before she uttered it:</p><p>"Murderer."</p><p>Ifan hadn't expected that to sting as much as it did.<br/>He was a Lone Wolf, a hired mercenary, a killer-for-hire. Aside from that, after the war, it was the thought that echoed through his mind every time he saw his own reflection, though mercifully those events were scarce. It was his job to kill, to track his prey across any distance to complete the contract, and he was good at it. Or at least, he'd felt like he was. Had that all just been the companionship of the pack? Belonging somewhere, no matter what one had to do to remain within the fold. It had been worth it, for a long time. Now?</p><p>He shifted his gaze to the bowls of fruit on the sideboard, the expensive-looking damask drapes covering the windows, the exquisite plaster mouldings on the ceiling...anything to escape the unrelenting vice-like hold of Sebille's steely regard. Then, he felt a pressure as her arms slipped around him, a tingle humming in his brain as her honey and blood breath warms his neck and trickles into his ear, murmuring, "I want to taste their end in your flesh."</p><p>After meeting his sorrowful eyes and taking her consent from his lack of resistance, she ran one sharp fingernail along his cheekbone. He barely registered the sting of pain as the tip of her finger collected the thin rivulet of blood, running down his face like a tear, and as she put it to her lips she shuddered. Ifan began to curl away into himself before it dawned on him that she seemed to be enjoying it, immensely so.</p><p>"I can see it," she whispered, awe-struck, eyes transfixed on a nonexistent point before her, locked upon sights which he himself had worked hard to forget, but would never.</p><p>"I can see the destruction you wrought upon my people. I, too, destroyed them from within. My master..." she breaks off, grimacing slightly at her own memories, before snapping back completely to the present, to this bedroom, and to Ifan.<br/>He barely had time to react as her focus retrained exclusively on him. He had been in some strange encounters before this, but Sebille's intensity of purpose was singular in a way that he'd yet to encounter.</p><p>She positioned herself atop him, cradling his face in her hands, covering his whiskery face with tiny licks and kisses, urgently intoning in a low, enthralling burr,</p><p>"I need this, need you to. Inside, it feels so empty, so cold, since...please, Ifan, I am so lost since the homelands fell, and I think you are the only one who could understand this terrible shame I feel. I cannot go to the elves whom survived for community, for I am the assassin in their midst. Nor could you rely upon the humans to ever truly accept you. We are monsters to them. Please, Ifan, I am so..."</p><p>He wraps his thick, strong arms around her lithe, sinewy body, drawing her closer into his warmth, until their bodies pressed together tightly, causing Sebille to gasp out her unspoken thought;<br/>"...hungry."</p><p>
  
</p><p>Despite having grown up around elves, Ifan was unsure as to how literally to take this admission. That was until she drew her needle to his flesh, pricking just below his right ear, this time leaning close and lapping at the flow with the tip of her pointy tongue. Ifan felt warmth begin to pool in his stomach as his ears started to ring and his vision darkened at the edges, consciousness receding from the outside inwards.</p><p>Just as he thought that perhaps he would faint and that he'd really better stop the hypnotic elf beside him from draining him to oblivion, Sebille's pale features swam into focus before him. The world rushed back, the distant roar of the tavern and the rich, sumptuous colours of his surroundings so momentarily overwhelming that Ifan reflexively startled.</p><p><br/>He leapt to his feet, his hand reaching for the hilt of his blade before he realised what he was doing.<br/>Sebille shifted so that her needle was positioned defensively before her, crouching on the other side of the bed, having sprung back from where Ifan had shoved her a moment ago in his panic. She waited, motionless, anticipating his attack. Instead, what happened next surprised them both very much. Falling back into a seated position on the bed, Ifan buried his head in his hands and wept noisily, his face reddening as his eyes and nose began to stream.</p><p>Sebille, appalled at the emotional display before her, reeled back at the sight of the sobbing mercenary. She felt revulsion creep into her heart, cold &amp; cruel. Stepping forward suddenly, she slapped Ifan brusquely across the scarred side of his now-soggy face. He leapt up, hand flying not to his cheek but his knife, gripping the handle and beginning to unsheathe it as their eyes met.</p><p>Both froze, Sebille's hand now tensed at her side, legs bending again to a crouch. Ifan, eyes red and still damp, the same eyes with pupils like whirlpools wreathed in flame, sat with his pointed teeth bared in an expression that was, aside from his rush of rage, immeasurable anguish. Time crystallized around them as they breathed, locked in one another's regard, standing motionless for one protracted moment.<br/>Neither thought that they'd made the initial move, but there they were, clumsily yet ardently entwined in an embrace that expressed more than words or tears could convey. Teeth clashed and lips bruised, and they dragged in drunken breaths as their bodies smoothed over any potential remaining awkwardness. With a growl, Ifan rolled Sebille onto her front and semi-playfully pinned her down, grabbing a fistful of her inky hair in his bear-like fist and tugging, not entirely gently.</p><p>"So, elf? Is this how you'd like me to...?"</p><p>His other hand finds her hip, as she wriggled her legs, struggling beneath him. He grasped one of her thighs and began to stroke it with his warm fingers, tracing runes on them roughly, absent mindedly, as his mouth finds the softest part of Sebille's neck. She shudders, still squirming, looking up at him with feline eyes, before she languidly stretched her willowy arms around his solid shoulders and fully availed herself to the embrace.</p><p>She dug her nails into his back, manoeuvring their interlocked bodies until she straddled him, both still fully clothed. Beneath her, pressed tightly, she can feel his pulse, a radiating heat. She can smell cold earth, damp leaves and pine needles in his sweat. His breath reeks of whiskey and smoke but he tastes like honey jerky. Kissing him was like standing next to lava.<br/>She undressed him like a lion picks meat from a carcass, all teeth and claws. He responded in kind until they were both knelt facing each other wearing not a stitch.<br/>Sebille sat up and leant back, meeting his eyes as she delicately grasped him, Ifan's eyelids fluttering as a low grown escaped him, body involuntarily jerking slightly as the initial wave of pleasure coursed through him. It had been far too long since this aspect of life had been given any time or importance. Somehow, at this moment, the lives they'd been living up until this point seemed absurd. This felt...vital.</p><p>Sebille's deft fingers massaged him slowly, pushing him time &amp; again almost to the peak, before working their way across his chest, until he felt himself lifted into another realm. He grasped her rib cage and kissed her deeply, rolling her over so he was on top of her, pressing against her with his whole body. He moved his mouth downwards, kissing a slow trail of light touches along her waist before burying his face in her lap, licking rhythmically with his rough tongue, causing her to gasp and grasp his hair with both hands as her hips bucked against his rugged face. Just as her breathing was mounting and her hands began to grip the bed, he pulled away with a mischievous smile, eyes glinting. "Let's..."</p><p>As he moved inside of her he felt a mounting lightness, as if following a predetermined path, guaranteed to end in purest good. His breath caught as the sensation built, as he struggled to hold back from the edge. Sebille pressed closer, grinding wantonly against him, eyes half closed and head back, almost mewling in little cries of pleasure. Suddenly her eyes snapped open, finding his sweaty, ravenous face before she threw back her head and convulsed, losing control. Ifan cried out, pulled to the peak and beyond, holding onto her hips as they saw beyond the veil together, just for a moment. Afterwards, for a long while, they slept, Ifan holding Sebille in the protective circle of his scarred arms until dawn.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The Morning After</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Ifan and Sebille come to terms with their unique dynamic and prepare to venture onwards in their search for Divinity.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ifan awoke first, regaining consciousness just as dawns' first pink light crept through the thick velvet curtains. The illuminated dust motes danced in the chink of sunshine. <br/>His eyes fluttered open, then closed again, as he infinitesimally tightened his hold on Sebille. He deeply inhaled the fresh, loamy smell of her hair, nuzzling into the warmth of her neck as she stirred slightly at his movement. They lay there for a long moment, Ifan cracking his eyes open reluctantly as the light outside intensified by degrees, inching across the sheets towards their naked entwined bodies. As the first finger of sun touched Sebille's alabaster skin her eyes opened, and she turned over to face him. As she did so Ifan took the opportunity to pull her face towards his, enveloping her in a deep kiss, feeling a tugging need arising in him again. <br/><br/>She pulled away ruefully, making motions towards leaving the bed. <br/>"Dear one," Ifan pleaded, voice husky, "it is just gone dawn, surely we have an hour or two yet to...uh...wrap things up here." <br/>His large, warm hands moved to her waist, sliding to her abdomen and pulling her close again. <br/><br/>Sebille pushed against his chest, swatting his hands away, but began to smile despite herself. She allowed herself to be drawn back into his embrace, and Ifan wrapped himself around her body like a spoon, his rough chin nuzzling her neck, hands stroking her shoulders, gradually moving down her body as his breathing deepened. <br/>She could feel his mounting excitement as he began to buck slightly against her, low whines and hisses emitting from him as he hoarsely moaned out her name in a delicious whisper. <br/>His fingers moved to her centre, tracing gentle circles as their bodies began to move together, small gasps and moans drawn from their ravenous mouths as they retraced their steps from the night before. Just as they were reaching the height of pleasure, a horrified scream ripped through the tavern, located from the door to the now-breached hideaway. Ifan rolled aside rapidly and threw Sebille the sheet, standing proud &amp; erect before Effie the appalled Innkeeper and the two well-to-do dwarvern guests behind her, who were peering with prurient interest at the scene before them. <br/><br/>"What in Lucian's name is going on here? This suite has been reserved for Lord &amp; Lady Aberlon - how in the Void did you get in?" <br/><br/>Ifan, naked as the day he was born, was not in a position to play for time, but he had to try. He was pretty sure Sebille still had Effie's keys, though Void knows how the dwarf hadn't missed them yet. <br/>"Excuse us, my, uh, my wife," Ifan gestured to Sebille's silent form beneath the sheets "was taken ill, and we were assured by someone, I've forgotten their name, that no-one would be in need of this room. We will, of course, see ourselves out if that is no longer the case." <br/><br/>At the mention of sickness, and surveying Ifan's flushed and sweaty countenance, all of the newcomers faces shifted to a uniform vague suspicion, and they noticeably recoiled. Effie harrumphed and began making excuses to the well-heeled guests as she ushered them away, before shooting Ifan a look that said, 'I'll deal with you later.'<br/>As she closed the door, a mite more firmly than strictly necessary, she finally went to check the clink of her keys in her pocket. <br/>'<em>The keys</em>!' he realised with a start. <br/>He hadn't seen Sebille put them back...but she had her ways. <br/>A 'chink-chink' could be heard as she strode away, apologising to the guests effusively.<br/><br/>Ifan spun to face the bed, where Sebille had emerged, unseen, from the cocoon of bedclothes. He raised an eyebrow at her inquiringly. <br/>She mimed Effie's gesture, waggling her hand as if holding invisible keys, then smiled reassuringly, spreading her hands before her, indicating 'nothing to see here,' before she giggled naughtily. Relief, heady after the burst of adrenaline brought on by the untimely intrusion, flooded him, and he gleefully launched himself back to the bed. <br/>Sebille, openly laughing now, rebuffed his attempts at a continuation of their caresses. <br/>She swiftly pulled her clothes on and dragged her hair back into a ponytail as she hauled on her sleek, light armour, strapping her knives to her thighs and waist. <br/><br/>Shooting him a long, lingering look over her shoulder as she left, Sebille loped out of the room silently, leaving him alone, naked &amp; aching for her, nothing remaining of her presence except the light musk of her fragrant sweat still perfuming the bedclothes upon which he lay. Ifan, sighing deeply, tentatively tugged his underclothes on, wincing at their rough texture against his still-sensitive skin. Rubbing his fists against his gritty eyes before stretching widely, his thoughts turned to the day ahead. There was always more distance to be covered, and usually he relished the life of a wayfarer, but lately it'd been leaving him cold. He found his thoughts pulled more frequently these days to the possibility of retirement. He'd go somewhere and settle down for good, develop a taste for a favourite bar, get to know his neighbours. It was a nice vision. 'Still,' he reasoned, hauling himself from the bed and dressing quickly, '<em>there's time yet, and before that, questions that need answers</em>.' <br/><br/><br/><br/>Sebille headed immediately to Meistr Sieva's Source Fountain, quickly filling herself brimful with the glistening turquoise liquid, sparks of it crackling across her skin as it sank into her as if into a vacuum and settled into her deep recesses. It was something, but not nearly enough. She ardently longed to feel truly powerful again. Last night had been...she wanted to write the experience off, to scornfully dismiss the oeuvres of human courtship and laugh cruelly. But with whom was there to do such a thing? Her stumbling words to Ifan had been honest in a way in which she was unaccustomed to speaking. She truly had no community, no family. Even amongst her travelling companions, only Ifan seemed to understand her with anything approaching compassion or empathy. Sebille suspected it was because he knew; knew what it was to live amongst elves, to honour the memories of their flesh. Knew what it was like to be a traitor, a puppet, at the beck and call of a demanding master. Knew the taste of true regret and shame. He had touched her in ways that she had not expected a human capable of, seen things in her that she had kept from the others.</p><p>As her thoughts raced, her psyche swollen with Source, Sebille headed North into the fields of Paradise Downs, beyond the travelling musician by the old windmill with her wagon of lutes and flutes, to whom she politely nodded as she passed by. Latterly, she roamed across to the centre of a golden field of corn, laid out her cloak and extended herself across it, enjoying the sensation of the warm sunlight on her skin. The sounds of the buzzing insects and rustling corn in the gentle breeze gradually pulled her into a trance-like state, completely tuned into the rhythm of the surrounding world.</p><p>She didn't even notice Ifan's thumping boots behind her until he crouched beside her and blocked out the sun with his muscular, grizzled body. <br/>"There you are. The rest of us were waiting in the tavern; turns out the elf cook has been serving Magisters to the whole of Driftwood! I'll imagine the Whites'll be keen to hush that up. They've taken her away, Void knows what'll happen next, but at least..." <br/><br/>"Why are you here?" Sebille demanded, cutting him off with an impatient jerk of her chin. "Come to tell me about how you bested yet another cannibal elf? Rub it in my face that your kind -" these words she hissed viciously "-have always and will always be at our throats? I ask again, ben-Mezd, <em>why</em> are you here?"</p><p>His scarred face, just moments ago full of joviality and good cheer, darkened over like a summer sky before a thunderstorm. At his sides, his hands clenched to fists, and Sebille could see a muscle jump in his jaw as he grit his teeth. He opened and closed his mouth a few times without any sound, before managing a throaty, "maybe see you later, then" and turned to leave, the set of his shoulders belying the hurt he felt where his words failed to do so. Sebille laid back in the corn, but her immersion had been broken now, and try as she might she couldn't tune back into the same feeling she'd had mere moments before. She felt threads of remorse encircle her heart, and made to catch up with Ifan.</p><p>He'd already walked halfway back to town by the time she caught up with him, striding past the Paladin bridge with a stiff salute to the sentry in the distance. She called out to him from a few feet away, and as he turned to her the expression on his face made her stomach tense up. Displayed on his features, just for a moment, was an expression of purest love and forgiveness, an expression of such warmth and sweetness that it was deeply incongruous with her usual image of the drudanae-stoned soldier. Then he gathered himself and the look was gone, replaced by his usual reserved-yet-affable smile and a friendly nod. He paused to allow her to catch up, and together they walked back to the Undertaven in silence, side by side in lock-step synchronicity, not daring to look at each other and risk breaking this delicate and unspoken entente.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. The Best-Laid Plans of Mice & Men</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The Godwoken make a plan, but first they create some memories to keep them warm on the long road ahead.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When they entered the tavern together Sebille scouted the room, seeing that Fane and Lohse were sitting at a table near the main door, Fane with his nose in a book and Lohse looking bored &amp; distracted.<br/>From the far opposite corner of the tavern, a dwarvern bard extolled the virtues of his kind and the failures of other races in bawdy song, each progressively lewd rhyme eliciting a groan or a cheer from the gaggle of attendant listeners. Ifan nodded to his companions before dropping back into what had, presumably, been his seat most of that day, if the accompanying stack of tankards was anything to go by.<br/>Even for his standards, Sebille thought, it seemed like a lot to be drinking so early in the day. She hesitated briefly, then took a seat and faced her companions, Fane putting aside his tome with a snap and a sigh and Lohse looking into Sebille's eyes warmly for a moment before Ifan addressed them all with a serious expression.</p><p>"Well friends, I have news. I've managed to track down an old friend in town, an undercover Lone Wolf. He told me where to find my old pack; they're camped out at an abandoned sawmill north of here. Apparently the bounty on Godwoken necks has been extended to the Wolves, which doesn't much surprise me, given what we've experienced with Magisters it was only a matter of time before they brought in the real professionals." Ifan checked himself, feeling the pride creeping into his voice, reminding himself that he was finished with measuring himself by those hollow metrics. "Anyway, I put in a word with this old friend that I'm heading to Roost with a pack of captured Godwoken - that would be you -", here he grinned ruefully, "-and we are expected within the tenday. Hopefully he'll have some answers for us too."</p><p>Having finished his piece, Ifan sat back, surveying Lohse and Fane's faces. He couldn't look at Sebille right now. When he'd come to find her in the cornfield and she'd been so dismissive of him, he was sure she'd known beforehand, at least of his intention to meet his old contact, if not of the entirety of his plan.<br/>Surely, she would have seen, given her racial talents and the raw intimacy that they'd shared?</p><p>He thought back to that morning, after she'd left without a word, the way his mind had spiralled in frustration and sexual paranoia, convinced she'd seen more than she could bear and was taking off. He'd paced around the splendid suite, blind to its lush comforts and gaudy adornments, now and then sitting on the bed and holding the sheets close to his face, trying to recall her to him.</p><p>After an hour or so, during which his mind swarmed with recollections of the night before and he paced, with many a heavy sigh, Ifan took ahold of his nerves roughly, striding out of the tavern and towards the area to which he'd been directed by his last contact.<br/>Upon meeting the fellow to whom he'd been directed idling in the shadows of the marketplace, they had briefly shared news and compared notes. Looking back now, Ifan was appalled with his recklessness at offering to track Roost down - and to send forewarning of their arrival directly to him, no less - not to mention the sheer bravado of delivering his companions directly to the Lone Wolf leader. This was a man whom he knew to be thoroughly deadly. Of course, his role of delivery boy was just a ruse , but did knowing that one was walking into a trap make it any less of one, or any more survivable?</p><p>Finally, he dared to look at Sebille, but she was staring into the middle distance, the long, slim index finger of her left hand tracing the curved scar on her cheek softly as she hummed to herself.<br/> She seemed totally lost in thought, and he wondered if she had even heard him until her gaze snapped to his and she shortly stated, <br/>"Sounds risky, but I'm in. When do we leave?"<br/>Fane and Lohse, looking a little dumbfounded at the elf's quick agreement, nonetheless indicated that they were willing to accompany too, so it was unanimously decided that they would set off at dawn the following morning.</p><p>"One more night in the Undertavern, then?" Ifan asked merrily, reeling over from the bar to where Sebille and Lohse were engaged in quiet conversation, clapping them on the shoulders, Fane having already reimmersed himself in his reading.<br/>Lohse smiled before removing his hand from her shoulder, and shook her head thoughtfully.<br/>"No thanks, Chief. This passenger requires I keep a straight head. Perhaps in Arx, after..."<br/>She trailed off, looking distracted again.<br/>"G'night, don't get arrested again!" she called behind her as she turned to leave.</p><p>Ifan, face reddening, coughed self-consciously as he waved the redheaded musician off, whilst Sebille looked on curiously, glancing between the two of them as Lohse's retreating back was swallowed up by the mob of patrons. After a moment of silence during which Ifan conspicuously failed to meet her eye, she inquired in an amused tone;<br/>"So, what exactly did you do to warrant your arrest?"<br/>Ifan grinned his signature rueful grin, all tousled hair, his sparkling eyes full of mischief.<br/>"Well, I don't know what you're expecting to hear, it's really more embarrassing than it is deviant...it's one hazard of drudanae; it makes your fears come alive sometimes when you take to it badly. Happens I thought there was a tiger outside my room, and, uh, I summoned Afrit in my stupor, and because of the state I was in, she..uh...did some damage. The Magisters grabbed me and hauled me off to the Joy."<br/>He met her eyes, his mouth wryly twisting with emotions which Sebille could not read.<br/>"Lucky me," he added, his smile breaking through again like sunbeams through clouds.<br/>Sebille waited a beat in case there was a punchline, but Ifan was done with his anecdote.<br/>She realised that she had never seen this wolf he spoke of; she had thought the moniker 'Lone Wolves' was merely the latest in a long line of men labelling themselves after animals they found threatening or majestic, but she hadn't imagined there to be a literal element to it.<br/>Her curiosity prodded her to ask, "Is he always with you?"<br/>Ifan, seemed somewhat confused as he slowly nodded, adding;<br/>"It's not so much that he's with me in as much as he's part of me, and I of he. A soul bond, if you like."</p><p>Weighing up this new knowledge, Sebille followed Ifan as he wound his way downstairs. They passed by the surly dwarf doorman, who studiously ignored them as they descended the ladder, and tramped through the damp tunnels into the Undertavern proper.<br/>Ifan made straight for the giant dream-pipe, turning his face away when he spotted Effie at her mixing desk of rare herbs and intoxicating liquors. She merely winked at Sebille knowingly, clearly not too sore about catching them inflagranté, as it no doubt gave her some good gossip; already the cheers and roars had begun as the clientele spotted them arriving together.<br/>Ifan threw a weighty pouch of gold at one of the burly attendants, whom he seemed to know, nodding towards the private accommodation area with six fingers held up. The attendant nodded curtly, stepping aside to allow them passage beyond.</p><p>Ifan gestured with a jerk of his head for Sebille to follow him, then led the way through a warren of low, narrow corridors until they reached a curtain pulled across a doorway, deep in the recesses of the Undertavern, just beyond where the dim light of the candles' sputtering flames illuminated.<br/>Ducking through the low doorway, Ifan struck his pocket flint to an unlit candle mounted on the wall, and bade her enter first, drawing the curtain closed behind them.<br/>Stepping lightly into the small earthen chamber, the cool air enveloped them in silence and the sounds of the Undertavern were muffled to a distant thrum, sounding so far off that it could have been waves lapping at a shore. In the centre of the chamber was a large pipe, a smaller copy of the one in the public rooms, except instead of having many hoses leading from the bulb-shaped chamber, this one only had two. Of a higher quality of construction than the public one, its glass chamber was iridescent, coloured in swirling waves of purple, blue and green, the beautiful shades the most vivid colours in the otherwise basic accomodation. Aside from a rough-looking mattress on the floor in one corner, the pipe was the only furniture or adornment in the room. It commanded attention.</p><p>Ifan sat cross-legged before the pipes' chamber, filling the bowl atop it with a dried leaf which he kept stashed on his person in a small leather pouch. Sebille, who had never smoked drudanae before, had scorned the addicts on the streets in their hazes, and it had never occurred to her to consider what would make a person wish this state upon themselves. Ifan finished his preparations, lighting the chamber and raising one of the hoses to his lips, taking a long, expert drag. He held his breath and placed the pipe down before leaning back on his knuckles and exhaling the smoke out slowly through his long, crooked nose, allowing his amber eyes to droop shut. His head nodded forwards as the hit took ahold of him, working its way through his body, along his weary muscles, soothing him from the inside out. He opened his eyes to gaze, slightly dazed, at Sebille, who watched him curiously.</p><p>"Have you ever...?" He gave the mouthpiece in his hand a waggle at her.<br/>She shook her head curtly.<br/>"Have you seen others who have?" A nod.<br/>"Friends of yours?" Another small shake.<br/>"Ah, I see." Ifan continued. "Well, I can't speak for those poor souls on the streets, but I've always found drudanae to give the most restful sleep the night before a long journey, not to mention the, ah, other benevolent qualities. One puff won't lead to addled destitution."<br/>He guffawed, "I've got some, uh, prior experience. Here," he said, as he picked up the other hose, gently tugging her sleeve before he placed it in her palm.<br/>She looked at it uncertainly before taking a small hit, immediately coughing violently, eyes streaming. Ifan laughed uproariously for a moment before seeing her icy expression. Pulling a bottle of mead from his rucksack and handing out her, he tried to make his tone sound sympathetic when he half-chuckled, "That first one always stings a bit, don't fret, it gets easier. Steady -!"</p><p>He moved quickly to break her fall as her body abruptly slumped sideways from her knelt position, managing to scoop his arms beneath her head before it hit the bare bedrock of the ground beneath them. After an instant her eyes fluttered open and she struggled to right herself, wrenching away from Ifan and moving closer to the pipe, sitting cross-legged before it, imitating his previous pose precisely. With her right hand, she picked up the hose from where she had let it fall, but as she went to take another drag, Ifan raised his mouthpiece and inhaled as hard as he could.<br/>The remaining drudanae in the chamber burned bright as a heave of oxygen was pulled through the contraption, releasing the last of the acrid smoke into the glass chamber, the hues of the glass seeming to swirl hypnotically as the smoke traveled through the airways, down the tubes, and all the way into Ifan's deep, scarred lungs. Sebille barely tasted the drudanae this time; Ifan had smoked the lot of it.</p><p>He, too, almost became overtaken by a violent fit of coughing, and Sebille offered the bottle of mead over to him, wondering what in the Void had possessed the both of them. Here they were, squirrelled away beneath the earth, smoking illicit substances and drinking mead while the war against the Voidwoken raged on without them.<br/>She had half a mind to leave, when Ifan pulled her close and pressed his mouth to hers, his tongue coaxing her mouth open before he poured his lungs into hers, sending the sweet, acrid smoke deep inside her as she gasped with surprise, sucking it into her lungs deeply without meaning to. She coughed again, less violently this time, as her head and body began to hum with a not-unpleasant, squishy sensation. This is what it felt like? Those reprobates in the streets, red-rimmed eyes agog, experienced this? Her mind wandered as she stared at the dancing candle flame. She thought about what Ifan had told her when she'd spoken to him properly, the first time he'd become more than just another inconvenient face in the entrapped crowd of the Joy.</p><p>"Once, I was a crusader for the Divine Order. I pledged my life to Lucian the Divine. But the war changed everything. He sent me to save the elves I grew up amongst. I arrived too late. Lucian ordered the use of Deathfog against the Black Ring, annihilating everyone I once knew in the process. Now, I'm a mercenary killer, one of the infamous Lone Wolves. And my next target is none other than Lucian's own son..."<br/>In the moment, she had been speechless, but even a lack of open hostility was more than enough, after such an admission. She'd questioned the coincidence of their meeting at first, but after hearing more about his life since those days, she'd become less convinced. It sounded like good old dumb luck had thrown him down of life's many banal courses of gradual dishevelment to where she'd encountered him.</p><p>Her head twitched upwards and she started, tugging against the blur in her head to return to the smoky room, and to Ifan.<br/>Sebille, thinking to herself in a hazy, reasoned sort of way, reckoned that drudanae wasn't so good nor so bad, and was not an unpleasant way to bide one's time, providing one didn't let the senses dull too much. Interrupted in her musings by the feeling of Ifan's hand upon her own, the thumb gently stroking the back of her hand, she pulled herself to the present again. Looking up at his craggy features, the eyes reddened and half-closed, she asked huskily;<br/>"Do you look as stoned as I feel?" before giggling in a manner she'd become totally unaccustomed to.</p><p>Ifan's face cracked into a wide smile, warmth radiating from his face, seemingly in waves. He lifted his hand with hers atop it, turning it until their palms were touching lightly.<br/>A tingle of Source suddenly travelled between them and they both inhaled sharply, lifting their other hands to meet in curious wonder. Another flicker of Source, and another tingle, more powerful this time, causing them to grip each other's hands tightly, creating a closed-circuit.</p><p>"Is this the drudanae's work?" Sebille asked, teeth clenched against the onslaught of feeling that was building within her. Ifan shook his head, unable or unwilling to speak. Upon his face was suddenly a great strain; his gray hairs seemed to be the majority in this light, the lines in his face more pronounced somehow. As he forcibly pulled his hands away a great agony erupted within him; a terrifying sense of absence, devoid of purpose or meaning. Sebille reached over to him, concern writ plain on her intoxicated face, but he avoided her touch, fearful, and ashamed of the fear that he'd felt, already ebbing away, gone as quickly as it had come. Nervously, his hands looking for something to do, he began to clean and refill the chamber of the giant glass pipe.</p><p>"Should you, I don't know, slow down?" asked Sebille, "you seem...jumpy."<br/>"Likewise, I'm sure." Ifan fired back as he finished refreshing the smoking apparatus.<br/>They sat in silence for a few moments, feeling awkward, before Ifan relented and reached for the mead again. He drank deeply, offering it over with a smile.<br/>"Friends, at least?"<br/>Sebille shot him a sharp look, full of pain and something else, less easy to ascertain, but relented, shooting him the first fond look he'd seen her give him.<br/>"Friends, at least."<br/>He reached a hand to cup her face, marvelling at the cool smoothness of her cheek against his callused hands, then turned her wan face to his whiskered one in the flickering light of the single sputtering candle.</p><p>There, for a long moment, they sat. He gazed at her face, feeling the magnetic pull of her wary eyes. Sebille's hand reached to cover his, and she leaned into his chest with a sigh.<br/>"Does the smoke always make one feel so strange, so..." she searched for the word, "unrooted?"<br/>"I wouldn't know, dearest one, what it means to feel rooted; my parents died when I was young, and I was raised by the elves, as you know. Whilst I love my Elven brethren, they are not my kin, and what you said before," here he broke off, looking with an uncharacteristic forlorn look, steeling himself, "about humans, how they cannot accept me...you are right. So, as I say, I cannot define what it feels to be rooted. I suppose that's why this stuff doesn't bother me too much."<br/>He shrugged, surprised by his own outburst, then re-lit the chamber and took another slow, steady toke, holding his breath again. This time Sebille came to him, offering her mouth up to him for more of the intoxicating smoke. He fed it into her mouth as though she were a baby bird, pecking her closed lips afterwards, stifling a sneeze as the remainder of his lungful tickled the wrong way.</p><p>As they eased into the sensation of the drudanae high Sebille began to hum softly to herself again, and this time Ifan recognised the tune; a nursery rhyme sung to elvish children about the mother tree being connected to every tree and, in turn, to every elf that dwelt therein. Ifan had heard this song before, many moons ago. He drifted back to a time when he slept cocooned high in a wicker hammock, held aloft by the trees of the homeland, watching hundreds of tiny lanterns flicker gently as the wind rocked him to sleep.<br/>He felt his eyes begin to droop again, lulled by the familiar tune, known so deeply that its words could be carved within his bones, and shuffled closer to the gently humming elf beside him, slinging an arm around her slight, cool form. She continued the melody wordlessly, staring at the movement of shadows flickering on the wall of the chamber.</p>
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<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Raw Meat</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>After a drug-fuelled night of cameraderie, Ifan and Sebille entangle themselves further in each others' company.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Ifan came to his senses, Sebille was sat with her long legs tucked beneath her, cradling his head on her lap as she stroked his hair absent mindedly, her eyes closed. Underground there was no clear passage of time; it could have been minutes, or days could have passed. <br/>He remained still for precious minutes, relishing the sensation of her long, precise fingers against his scalp as she combed his mid-length salt &amp; pepper hair through with her hands. It was the best brush he'd had in several moons.</p><p>Giving up the facade of sleep, Ifan stretched stiffly, his bones aching from a night spent on the ground, limbs protesting their age in a way that made him feel ancient next to the graceful elf, but which, as he knew painfully well, was the opposite of the facts at hand. His surprise was immense when Sebille suddenly curled her face over his own, still holding his head in her lap, opened her eyes and kissed him tenderly, whispering; "The dawn is not yet here sweet one, sleep again," gently into his ear.<br/>She leaned back again to stroke his hair rhythmically, seeing on his face a peacefulness that had never before settled upon it before in her presence. Ever since she began to hum that lullaby whilst they were reeling from the drudanae he had seemed soothed, perhaps even tamed, if such a thing were possible for a man like him.</p><p>His breathing relaxed again but his eyes didn't close. Instead he rolled into a sitting position, gesturing at the mattress before he made his way to it on hands and knees. Sebille followed him, sliding in beside him like a whisper, her hands reaching for him as his body heat quickly warmed the chilly bedclothes. Sleep-befuddled and strangely calm, he became aware of her hands tracing his back as she wriggled her body closer to him, kneading the pressure points on his neck with more strength than he'd have expected. It felt blissful. A low moan issued from his lips as her thumb found a loop in one of the knots of muscle in his shoulder, releasing tension he didn't realise he'd been holding.<br/>With the undulating waves of relaxation brought on by her dextrous fingers, his libido returned with a vengeance. <br/>Despite their imminent departure, despite spending most of the night sprawled across cold bedrock, despite his &amp; Sebille's earlier misfires, Ifan couldn't resist letting down his defences. Her hands unwove a spiderweb of steel wires, accumulated over a lifetime of brutality and hardship, stroking her fingers down &amp; down &amp; around until each nerve in his back felt like raw stretched silk.</p><p>Her tenderness was unprecedented, and for a moment he fearfully wondered if a cunning demon had stolen her form to entrap him. Sensing his hesitation, she stilled her hands and leant down, pulling his chin around to look at her.<br/>"Is everything...?" was all she managed to utter before Ifan pressed his rough, unshaven face to hers in a deep, passionate kiss that left them both breathless. <br/>He rolled over beneath her and his hands began to wander; one to the nape of her neck, pulling her face back to his as if magnetised, as the other cupped a buttock, causing her to squirm against him, lips parting in a gasp as he began to murmur softly into her ear,<br/>"Dearest one, the world has been so dark...for far too long. But you, when I'm with you, it's like being blind. You are radiant. You are...everything to me."<br/>"...you are so precious," Sebille began, before Ifan placed two gentle fingers to her lips.<br/>"If this is the speech about how human life is precious because of its inherent mortality, and that you can love them in the way of a pet but must reconcile yourself with leaving us behind almost as soon as you meet us, in your eyes? This isn't my first tumble with..." he stopped abruptly at the expression on her face.<br/>'Damn it' he cursed internally. 'Always putting my big, hairy foot in my mouth just when the going gets good.'<br/>Sebille allowed him to wilt beneath her gaze for a moment longer before continuing as if he hadn't spoken.<br/>"...because we share so much. Our songs, our treachery, our homeland..." she pauses, remembering with bitter nostalgia before she continued.<br/>"I do not blame you for your part in the death of our people."</p><p>Ifan noted with gratefulness that her use of 'our' did not exclude him, "but you must understand that as you see me, I also see you. I see the good in you, Ifan Silver Claw, and I see the all in you. It is...unaccustomed, I am unaccustomed, to being fully seen by a human, yet I must admit that you are not just any human. Even beyond your upbringing, your very name is renowned throughout Rivellon, soaked in the blood of those whom you've slain. Whom but myself could understand? I am prime scion only because I eliminated my kin, on orders of..." she broke off, a low angry hiss building in her throat. Her finger lightly traced the scar on her cheek as she struggled to suppress her rage.<br/>"You see, we are really far too similar to ever hope of being..." she trailed off again, this time not in anger. Ifan stifled any thoughts she may have had beyond that with throaty kisses and roaming hands, touching her eagerly, responding to her hoarse breaths. He slowed his rhythm as her mouth sought his and she moved with his hands, moaning softly into his shoulder as she felt herself start to disintegrate, loosening the tie on his breeches.</p><p>He moved to help her, wrenching them off with a tearing sound as Sebille uttered a desperate pleading noise, pulling his hands back to her taut body as he moved atop her, allowing himself to press against her hot, wetness while he covered her face, neck, shoulders and breasts with kisses. She whimpered and wrapped her legs around his body, trying to draw him into her. As he entered her, Ifan's back arched and he let out an animalistic growl, pupils dilating to wide black pools as a wave of pleasure rolled through him. He pulled back, aching to overwhelm his senses within her statuesque form, yet wanting the experience to last as long as it possibly could. After all, he'd tumbled with elves before, and he knew that when he was beaten in stamina, it was best to keep himself off the boil while ensuring that his companions enjoyed the most lavish of attentions. Sebille, however, was not merely an elf; she craved control, in compensation for the agency which had, for too long much of her life, been denied her.</p><p>Rolling across to straddle him as she'd done the previous night, Sebille slid Ifan's body fully into her own again, beginning to rock slowly backwards and forth, light beads of sweat glinting on her brow &amp; neck as her normally pale skin flushed pink with exertion and pleasure. Ifan groaned loudly, one hand going to her thigh to quell her increasingly frantic movements, the other going to cup her face as the vestiges of his composure began to slip away. She nuzzled her face into his palm, sharp teeth catching his finger and snagging slightly, licking up the blood from his finger as flickers of his memories danced through her mind; a sparkling lake, a great lush glade of greenery, the scent of woodsmoke and gunpowder.</p><p>She noticed that he was biting his lip hard enough to draw blood - she eagerly kissed his wet, red mouth, coaxing it open with her tongue as the fragments of memories move within her along with his hot, hard body. His whimpers heightening, and she abruptly withdrew from him, lying back and pulling his mouth to her, Ifan almost encircling her slender thighs with his rugged hands as he earnestly began to pleasure her. He teased her with his tongue and warm, smoky breaths, feeling her hips begin to rhythmically buck against him again before he brought one hand to her, licking gently in a slow spiral on her centre while his long, thick fingers stroked her opening, occasionally pushing inside as she moaned, crying out a plea to him in the elvish tongue, almost delirious with wanting.</p><p>Ifan could feel a spreading warmth in his belly as he gazed at her before him, body all planes and perfect composition, flushed skin now radiant with lust and perspiration; lithe limbs tugged at him now, pulling his face down to hers, pulling his body inside once more.<br/>This time, they were both close to falling over the edge. Sebilles' legs wrapped tightly around Ifan, arms snaking around his neck as her whole form undulated against him, her breathy cries urgent, eyes shut tight.</p><p>He pulled them into a sitting position, holding her up with a hand on the small of her back, the other gripping her thigh tightly to his, as he slowly swivels his hips with her astride him. Her head fell back in utter relish, moans increasing in volume as he sped up, her hands holding his shoulders as they both moved together, more skilfully than before, beginning to sense each other's pace.<br/>Sebille grasped Ifan's hands tightly in both of hers and looked unwaveringly into his dilated eyes.</p><p>At the final moment Sebille tilted far, far back, thrusting her hips once more against him, hearing his guttural cry of release before she fell over the sparkling blue waterfall at the edge of the map into glorious, sensual oblivion. She knew nothing but soft, dark oblivion until Ifan gently woke her at dawn, brushing strands of hair from her eyes as he offered her an apple that he'd managed to acquire from somewhere.<br/>He smiled ruefully. "Well, much as I hate to call an end to this, it's time for us to be off. Last night in the Undertavern for a while yet, I'll wager." He looked around nostalgically, and Sebille wondered whether he wouldn't miss this place rather more than he let on when he was parted with it. He'd certainly seemed comfortable here. She furrowed her brow as a dark suspicion wove its' way into her mind.</p><p>"Don't mention this to the others."<br/>It was not a request.<br/>Ifan felt himself wince; her instinct had been spot-on.<br/>He didn't like to think of himself as a kiss-and-tell, but half of the fun of such encounters for him had always been the swapping of such lurid stories over drinks. That was just the way his life was; one couldn't expect such bawdy tales to not be regaled, at some stage of drunkenness, to the amusement of all assembled. He'd never thought much of it before. That was the way of things, and he wasn't about to make himself into a pariah for the sake of someone's blushes, especially when they'd never know about his indiscretion anyway.</p><p>Ifan's expression must have betrayed him, because Sebille intensified her expression and spoke to him in a sharp tone.<br/>"Understood? And I shall know if you lie."<br/>"Understood, ma'am," he replied, a touch of insolence evident in his apparent assent.<br/>She didn't take the bait, merely stood and exited the rough earthen chamber, lightly making her way back upstairs to find Lohse and Fane.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. The Road Ahead</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The team reconvene to head out of Driftwood and into the wilds of Reapers' Coast.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>[GLOSSARY: elvish "Damn. Shit. Idiot"]</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They set off West out of the city, turning North along the coast until the reached a bridge guarded by a large earth-coloured troll, the ravine over which the road led framed on both sides by tall trees, in a tableau that seemed to come straight from a fairy-story. They paused down the path, out of sight of the burly beast, as Fane rummaged in his rucksack for a long while before triumphantly producing four small vials, each swirling with a dark purplish liquid that shimmered with twinkles of light.</p><p>Handing one to each of them with a small nod, he bent his hooded head close to theirs and whispered proudly;<br/>"This will help us to traverse onwards unseen; do be careful not to tarry, these shan't last for long." <br/>With that, he swigged his vial down, shimmering from view as soon as it disappeared within his cowl. <br/>First he was there, and then he was not. <br/><br/>With a brief, grim, silent 'cheers', Ifan, Sebille and Lohse followed suit, trying to ignore the strange tickling sensation in their stomachs alongside the loss of their corporeal senses of self. None of them could see themselves, or each other, and each approached the troll cautiously and swiftly as he paced to and fro across the ancient stonework, hoping not to bump into one another. <br/>They silently inched around his massive bulk, barely daring to breathe when he swung past them within a whiskers-breadth. Before they knew it they were on the other side, running along the path, flickering back into view just as they rounded the first corner beyond the bridge. <br/>They stopped short and gathered, breathless, Ifan letting out a low whistle as he chuckled. <br/><br/>"How was that for a bit of excitement, then?" He grinned eagerly, clearly getting into his stride. Sebille shaded her eyes against the mounting sun, looking back with a frown along the path they'd come from before pivoting elegantly, still frowning, to gaze eastwards, then towards the south. Wordlessly, she beckoned for the party to follow her, leading them down a grassy snicket. Within five minutes they reached the same field of corn in which Sebille had been the morning before. <br/>She turned to Ifan with a scowl. <br/>"Why bring us via the troll bridge?!" she demanded impatiently. "If this was the route all along, why not leave from the east gate and avoid the scenic detour of our brains potentially getting pulped out of our skulls?" <br/><br/>Lohse and Fane, who had made the most of the bustling town while they'd had the chance and were therefore largely ignorant of the area's geogpraphy, initially looked non-plussed, before realisation dawned upon their faces. <br/>"Wait up. You're telling us that we went the long way round? What a joke!" Lohse trilled lightly, tone light but eyes flashing. "But of course, the Driftwood environs of trolls and other large fauna are the perfect tonic for a girls' teensy-little case of demonic possession!" she added acerbically as she made a dramatic flourish with her trembling hands. Fane looked over at Ifan. Ifan couldn't be sure of the expression the Eternal wore beneath his hood, but he could sure sense the anger radiating from him. His stomach began to knot uncomfortably. <br/>Fane's next words were in tones of deepest scorn. <br/>"Well, while I am indeed grateful to have had this riveting experience, you do know those vials don't come cheap. Not that gold really has value to a superior being like myself, but the..." Fane paused for a moment, looking for the right words, "...inconvenience is greatly perturbing. Pehaps in future you should be more forthcoming to us with some of the finer details, in case your own judgement happens to have taken leave of you. Only human, afer all." <br/>Following his damning speech, Fane sat down upon a nearby log, rummaging once more in his voluminous sack before arranging his robes. The Eternal buried his head back into a book, clearly unwilling to continue at this juncture. Lohse huffed slightly, then caught sight of the trading musican some way down the south path and wandered in her direction with a clipped wave and a "catch you in a bit, chiefs!" called over her shoulder at them. <br/><br/>Sebille watched her departing back with an impenetrable expression before turning to Ifan. "Smart move, soldier." She stood a few feet away from him, arms crossed across her ribcage, the trunk of her body facing away from him, radiating irritation and impatience. His tensed, closed face cracked into a hang-dog expression, but his eyes sparkled. "You didn't have to call quite so much attention to it, but I guess I was pretty stupid. You're right that the East road is faster, but what with the stench of the shoreline in the south, not to mention Voidwoken ichor everywhere, I thought the longer road would be preferable this time. After all, we have several days before Roost is expecting us, and the mill not so far away." His lips, incourrigable, bent into a smile as his hand brushed her elbow, deliberately closing the distance between them to lend greater meaning to his words. Fane, still sat on the log with his book, coughed once in a forced manner, not looking up. Sebille scanned the horizon with futility for Lohse, who by now almost was out of sight, having caught up with the merchant, then back over to Fane, whom studiously ignored them both. Faced with the prospect of an afternoons' worth of sharpening her daggers and preparing her kit - knowing they were so close still to Driftwood - or another few hours with Ifan, she returned his smile, wryly concluding that her and Ifan's ideas of adventure were very different, though not necessarily incompatible. <br/><br/>They carefully kept their distance from each other as they walked out of sight of Fane, heading north-east, and shortly they came across two lowing cows in an unharvested swaying cornfield. As they passed closer to the creatures, Ifan paused, glancing over at them surrupticiously with an odd look him his eye. Sebille shot him an inquiring glance and mouthed, "what?" <br/>"I think...that they're human." Ifan frowned, puzzled. "Would you mind if I..." h <br/>He lapsed into silence and vaulted over the wall in one powerful movement before raising his palms, moving slowly forwards, moo-ing softly. <br/>Sebille was dumbstruck - 'he speaks to them?' she thought incredulously. The cows appeared quite agitated, stamping and snorting as they seemed to converse with Ifan in low tones. He nodded sagely, unfastening a bucket from the side of his bedroll and knelt before the cow beside it, his hands moving skilfully to milk her. <br/>As he finished, the cow gave him an affectionate nuzzle and Sebille heard him chuckle and say, "Steady on there, girl." <br/><br/>When he returned, he looked grave, placing the full bucket of creamy milk down on a flat rock beside the path. <br/>"They say there is a witch up ahead, and that she turned them into cows. However, they haven't seen the witch in a while, and are, well..." Ifan coughed "somewhat uncomfortable in their present forms. They asked me to see what I could do." <br/>Sebille raised an eyebrow and Ifan reddened deeply. <br/>"That wasn't -! It didn't mean -!" he spluttered. She let her features relax into a mischevious smile as his words failed him and his entire body seemed to glow with abashment. <br/>"I see you. You speak with them, and they understand. That is a great gift. You never spoke of this before. Did somebody teach you, or have you always been able to speak with animals?" Ifan's face began to regain its normal hue again as he nodded. "Innate. The same as Afrit. It has always been so. The ladies in the field..." he barked another slight cough "...mentioned the witch's familiar, a blue frog, he might be able to give us some answers." He bared his feral teeth. <br/>"Or just an appetizer." <br/><br/>Taking note of the glint in his eyes and the bounce in his step, Sebille kept her own counsel as they headed towards where the cows had told Ifan to look for the witch's house. There it stood amidst the golden fields of corn, bathed in the noonday light of summer, sweet honeysuckle trailing across the diamond leaded windowpanes in a riot of cloying scent and gaudy colour. Upon the front porch perched a blue frog, turgid and motionless, sitting in the shade by a water barrel. Ifan approached it with a series of croaks, the frog responding, repeating the same hoarse phrase again and again. Ifan sighed, turning to Sebille. <br/>"This one's a coward until we cross him, but he won't let us near that house, and then by the looks of things we'll be in for a nasty shock or several. It's up to you. Shall we tackle this with bloodshed or by shadow-foot?" <br/>"Do you even need to ask?" she asked lightly. She made a quick motion with her hands inside her tunic, then downed another of the small vials, like the ones Fane had handed to them earlier. It seemed to Ifan that she had an abundant supply hidden away somewhere, regardless of their expense. <br/><br/>As she shimmered out of view, Ifan tried again to speak to the cacaphonous, rude frog, expecting it to shriek at him to leave as it had before. As it opened its mouth to do so, no sound emerged, merely a gush of gooey, slimy green blood as the frog curled up before him, twitching. Sebille shimmered back into view, grimacing. "I do not like your choices," she said, wiping goo off her armour. <br/>"Always messy." <br/>"It was an either/or procedure!" Ifan guffawed, greatly amused by the sight of her sloughing frog's blood from herself, her mouth a picture of distaste. <br/>"Eitheror?" she asked tersely, which only made him laugh harder. <br/>He had forgotten the lingustic differences between their languages, and had become too accustomed to the idiosyncracies of human dialect. Sebille usually spoke the common tongue so fluidly, due in part, he expected, to her long exile from the elves. Feeling a little guilty for his lack of clarity, he explained; <br/>"Either you spill his blood, otherwise we can sneak into the house." Her face knitted the sentiments together, and with a half-amused, half-frustrated roll of her eyes asked, "More unnecessary steps?" Pursing his lips together in a failed attempt to suppress his smile, Ifan bobbed his head back and forth in confirmation. Sebille let out an undignified snort, expelling several curses from her lips, seeming to scold herself. <br/>"Nuuta. Traako. Haaku, Sebille," she hissed, and inclined her head, indicating for Ifan to unlock the door. <br/><br/>Perhaps she had expected too much of him, because rather than attempt to pick the lock or even try the handle, Ifan raised one strong booted foot to the door with a resounding kick. It creaked loudly and a few splinters broke away from the edges, but remained firmly upright. He kicked again, then once more, then again, the third time traditionally being the charm, and the door collapsed inward, wood splintering across the floor.</p>
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<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Paranoia & Intrigue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The team set off on their journey, and will be put to the test from the outset.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>[GLOSSARY: elvish; "fire-flower"]</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sebille looked at Ifan with undisguised amazement, scarcely believing that she'd just witnessed such carelessness.</p><p>How very un-stealthy of him. The audacity. Was he trying to get them both killed by a murderous witch? <br/>Moving to the doorway, Sebille peered through the gloom within as her eyes adjusted, Ifan already furkling about amongst the witch's personal items inside the cottage. <br/>He brandished a couple of potion bottles from a cupboard, tossing them to her with an appreciative grunt before going to ransack the desk. Finding a small, leather-bound book inside, he leafed through.<br/>"Hmm," he exhaled thoughtfully. <br/>Sebille stashed the bottles in her bag and stalked over to see what he'd found. The book was a mixture of arcane symbols alongside quantities. <br/>'<em>A recipe book</em>,' she thought. <em>'Perfect.'</em> <br/>She enquired as to the symbols, "What does it say?" <br/>To which Ifan, looking sheepish, gazed at her for a second before laughing. <br/>He replied with mirthful eyes. "Uskeche, I do not know, but I do seem to remember Fane scrawling something similar to this in that notebook he's always toting about. I'll bring this," he smiles, slipping the book under his tunic, slotting it into place against his heart, "and get him to translate, then we should probably come back here to gather any more notes on her rituals." <br/><br/>Loping around her to push the remaining splinters of wood hanging from the hinges across the worst views of the exploded mess of frog all over the porch, Ifan lowered his voice and regarded her. <br/>"D'you remember last night in the Undertavern, when you asked about my, uh, soul bond. It wouldn't have done to show you there, for, uh <em>historically relevent</em> reasons, you understand," and with this he winked devilishly, "- but out here away from town it's perfectly safe. Afrit will take this," he pats the left side of his chest, "and we can stay here and..." his face twitched as a blush crept up his neck. <br/>"Well. Look for those notes on her rituals. Maybe have time for a brew and a blether. If we're lucky." <br/>He shuffled his feet aimlessly for a second before springing into action again, rummaging through shelves and gingerly inspecting the contents of barrels, always approaching the latter with a cautious snuffle before he levered their lids off to ascertain their contents. This continued for several minutes, during which Sebille stood motionless, watching him inquisitively as he bustled about. <br/>'<em>Surely he's not forgotten</em> - ' she mused, and, right on cue, Ifan clapped one of his massive palms to his forehead. <br/><br/>He reflexively turned his back to her as he murmured the familiar incantation, summoning Afrit from within. Ifan closed his eyes as he transferred the leather-bound volume along with part of his soul to the wolf, then sent him running, his huge, vibrant form a blur of Source-fire. <br/>Afrit burst through the ragged remains of the door and vanished out of sight the way they'd previously come from. <br/>All Sebille saw was a flash, and heard an echoing howl that seemed to span dimensions, as she felt a strong force drag her briefly towards the doorway. <br/>Then, silence. Ifan's breathing, momentarily laboured by the process, came through in panting barks. <br/>He stretched himself to his full height again and took a few deep, steadying breaths, looking her way with a shaky chuckle. <br/>Her expression was more impressed than he'd ever seen thus far, eyes wide and mouth slightly parted as she looked from the empty doorway and back to him, letting out her breath slowly. <br/>"So. Afrit will let me know when Fane is ready, if that enlightened Eternal ever gets off his everlasting backside, and we can entertain ourselves here until then. What do you say?" She tilted her head to one side, recovering her composure at the sound of his usual friendly tone. <br/>"I say that I am still covered in frog, ben-Mezd, and while you may be happy to smell like a wet dog, I am unhappy." <br/>Her slightly out-of-place use of the word touched a tender nerve within him, despite the barbed insult contained in her statement. <br/>'<em>Unhappy</em>,' he mulled. It seemed as if he'd not heard that word for a long time, despite it being evident wherever he went. <br/>The more one felt it, the less one spoke of it, he supposed. Stepping decisively to the water barrel through the now-congealing guts on the porch, Ifan used a pint mug from his pack to sluice down the steps a little, before he placed it into Sebille's hand. <br/>"Here. Wash yourself down with this," he commanded, forcing his steely tone to cover the feelings he felt arise at the opportunity to witness her nudity. <br/>Sensing her hesitation, he pulled up a chair, theatrically turned it around so that the back faced the water barrel, and raised his eyebrows. <br/>"I shan't peek, if that's what concerns you." <br/>He took a seat, facing away from her. She rolled her eyes at his back and unfastened the straps of her obsidian armour, stripping down to her undershirt, next shedding her greaves with quick, utilitarian movements, slaking off her fighters' apparel piece by piece until her ash-birch-bark skin shone beneath the afternoon sunlight. Sebille filled the mug from the barrel and doused herself in the clear, ice-cold water, suppressing the urge to shrink away from it, refilling the mug again and repeating quickly several times before she could change her mind. The shock made her hiss and flinch, but she focused on rinsing the last vestiges of the froggy innards from herself. <br/>Turning back to face the open doorway, Sebille recognised with a start that Ifan was not in the same position; the chair's back remained facing her, but Ifan sat astride it, gazing at her unashamedly. He raised his eyebrow when she turned fully to him, the flush creeping up his neck as she lunged for him in unbridled fury. <br/>"Some honour you have, ben-Mezd." She snarled his name, batting his playful attempts at defense aside effortlessly. <br/><br/>"Enjoy the show?" she hissed, teeth bared an inch from his grizzly throat. "I should rip out your windpipe for your gall." The lusty laughter fading quickly from his eyes as he appraised her anger, and his hand reflexively twitched to the hilt of the dagger at his side. They faced off for a moment, Sebille's rage ebbing in the face of her continuing nudity, and Ifan rapidly realising that his little jape had struck entirely the wrong tone with her. Ifan forced himself to remove his hand from the hilt of his sword and face his palms to her, arranging his features into a look that he hoped was contrition. <br/>He apologised; "Sebille, please. I thought that, well, I thought you wouldn't mind. I meant no offense. It is my honour, not yours, that has been tarnished by my poor conduct." Her eyes lost a hint of viciousness, and her teeth moved slowly away from his throat as she leapt to grab her clothes, gracefully and haughtily pulling them back across her body piece by piece, a show of controlled efficiency and speed. Fingering her knives lovingly as she reattached them to her person, she turned to Ifan and snapped at him, stalking through the doorway and back towards the fields. <br/>"We go now. Come quickly or lose your tail" <br/><br/>Ifan did not wait to find out exactly what she had meant by that, and hurried after her, having to make long strides to catch up with her, reaching her just before she was about to turn the corner into sight of their companions. <br/>"Wait, Uskeche, please." He called out softly to her, using an endearing term in her mother tongue, trying to catch up. He clumsily took ahold of one of her hands, trying to pull her to face him. She was caught off guard by his sudden lunge and stumbled back into him, putting him off-balance, and they clutched at each other wildly before tumbling to the ground. Ifan wheezed an "ooft" as Sebille landed on his abdomen as they fell, knocking the wind from him. She sprung up almost as fast as she'd gone down, leaving him sprawled in the dust, desperately trying to refill his temporarily paralysed lungs. <br/>Sebille looked at him lying there as she stood above him, and then threw her head back. Bared sharp white teeth showed, her face wrought into an unkind smile, she stood there laughing into the sun. She paused to theatrically wipe a tear from her cheek before offering him her hand, and as we went to take it she withdrew it, making a childish gesture, thumb to nose, fingers waggling, as he almost fell back. <br/>Proffering it to him again, she did not withdraw her aid the second time, hauling him to his feet and clapping him on the back as he coughed and dusted himself down. <br/><br/>She skipped ahead of him towards where Fane sat, in precisely the spot which they'd last seen him, Afrit curled at his feet as he perused the leather-bound tome from the cottage. "Anything useful yet?" she called over to him, stopping a few feet away and casually pulling out her needle to inspect. Fane looked up, appraising her and Ifan with a nod. "Mm, quite." The Eternal nodded towards the volume in his bony lap. <br/>"It seems this wily witch has more than a few tricks up her sleeve. We'll do well not to run into her, providing she's still..." he trails off, delicately. <br/>"Anyway. This wolf mentioned something about some cows after she delivered the book; was that from you? Or do these source creatures of yours habitually spout gibberish?" Ifan nodded, "We came across two transfigured cows out in the pastures, we thought that maybe the book contained some sort of instruction to return them to human form." The Eternal regarded him with vague curiosity, thinking idly to himself. <br/>'<em>This man, seeking powers of a God while running around curing cows of their cow-ness, leading us on this merry goose chase through the hills while Rivellon teeters on the brink of the Void. Ridiculous. Still</em>...' <br/>He pointed a gloved hand to a spot on a page. <br/>"If transmogrification reversal is what you're after, I think this might just do the trick." <br/>Ifan leant forward to read over Fane's bony shoulder, but quickly retracted his head. <br/>"This is why I sent it to you, Fane. A merc like me can't make head nor tail of this recipe."<br/>"Mm, what? Oh, yes, of course. It's quite simple, really. Just take...oh never mind." <br/>Gloved hand scribbling down an ingredient list on a scrap of parchment in the common tongue, Fane handed it to Ifan with a sniff. <br/>"I expect you can find all of these in Driftwood. Except, that would mean we needed to go back there. Press on with the long road ahead, mm what?" <br/>The Lone Wolf took the list and scanned it, whistling through his teeth. "No good deed goes unpunished, aye? Well, I best get going then. Meet you back here in..." he scanned the list again, "three hours. Two and a half if I'm lucky." <br/>He flashed a brief, lopsided grin before dashing off south-east towards the town at a sprint, Afrit leaping up to follow him before a snap of Ifan's fingers sent him trailing back to where Fane and Sebille set their packs down and sat, surverying the idyllic scenery around them. <br/><br/>From this position, with the scent of wildflowers from the meadow drifting across and the early afternoon sun warming the earth gently, it was hard to believe that the world as they knew it was coming to an end. Sebille shifted her weight, settling in to tune out into nature. Fane looked over at her, giving a small cough to rouse her before she got too deep, and asked her in a blunt tone, <br/>"So, given what you know of Silver Claw, do you wish to continue to put your faith in his leadership?" <br/>Sebille opened her eyes, an offended expression clear on her features. <br/>"He is not my leader. I am without. He is my -" she paused, pausing as she recalled her recent tryst with drudanae, "- friend," she finished, rather lamely to her own ears. <br/>Her irritation flared within at the uppity immortal, always snidely sniping away. She stood, abruptly, turning to go after Ifan, as Fane called out, <br/>"Off you go then, follow the doggy, woof woof Sebille, ta-ra for now!" <br/>She spun on her heel, blazing with rage, spitting her words out. <br/>"Even if he is a dog, he is a good dog. You are bones without memory, structure without flesh to make meaning. He may be a killer but you? Are an <em>abomination</em>." <br/><br/>She rushed down the path towards town, not trusting herself to stop in case she turned back and...then what? She had witnessed Fane walking through poisonclouds, relishing the noxious gas that would have felled her. Better not to start a fight she could not finish, with one such as him.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Alienation</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Jarred by Fane's haughty attitude and rude demeanor, Sebille is pleased to run into Lohse, but all may not be entirely right with the charismatic bard as their quest for Divinity continues. Meanwhile, the search for the cure to the Witch's transmogrification spell continues as Ifan and Sebille get to know each other better.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="western">Before she'd gone more than a half-mile down the path, Sebille saw Lohse swinging dreamily along the road ahead of her, wandering towards her whilst humming brightly, eyes distant and lost in thought.<br/>Stopping short of her, Sebille waited for the human to notice her, letting her almost pass by before waving a hand in front of Lohse's face.</p><p class="western">"Hey, anyone home?" she smiled and lifted a light finger to tap on Lohse's skull gently.<br/>The bards' eyes focused on her and she smiled haltingly.<br/>"Sebille. Hey. What's happened since I took off?"</p><p class="western">Sebille explained the rigmarole with the cows and the witch, taking her time and relaxing into the retelling, leaving out the insalubrious parts and smoothing over her own jangled nerves in doing so.<br/>She did not speak of Fane.</p><p class="western">Posion had a nasty habit of spreading when uncorked. Words had weight.</p><p class="western">Lohse recounted in turn her conversation with the musical merchant, chatting about the tavern-halls they'd had comparable experiences in and anecdotes from the cities they'd visited.<br/>'<em>Probably all wildly exaggerated</em>' thought Sebille, nevertheless enjoying the way Lohse could weave a narrative thread, her voice a guiding instrument, full of music and passion. Suddenly she stopped, mid-sentence, her eyes turning black and a grey tinge coming across her face.<br/>She leered at Sebille lavisciously,<br/>"<strong>Did the dog get his bone, Sebille</strong>?" she rasped in gravelly, malevolent tones, licking her pointed pink tongue over-extended lips as the elf scrambled back, reaching for her weapon.<br/>Like a summer storm, Lohse's eyes cleared and her skin flushed with its usual creamy complexion. She looked at Sebille's spooked face askance.<br/>"What's up, chief? I drifted off there for a second."</p><p class="western">Sebille could not answer her, could not bear to even look at her, afraid of seeing the leer of seconds ago still overlaid onto Lohse's now-bright features.<br/>"Nothing, Lohse. Good talk. Fane's just up ahead. I must...go," she replied, forcing her voice not to shake, heading to continue down the path where Lohse had come from, hopeful yet reticent of running into Ifan again.</p><p class="western">The daylight was beginning to wane, her shadow stretching out before her as she strolled south, a foul wind beginning to waft the scent of revolting rot across to her. Wrinkling her nose in distaste, she paused before travelling any further. Ahead in the distance she could see the great bridge, connecting the towering ramparts of Driftwood to the rocky ravine encircling it. Trees lined the route towards town, stretching their protective boughs overhead in a light canopy. Birds chirped from above, and the whirr of grasshoppers pervaded the air.</p><p class="western">Getting closer, Sebille saw that the bridge was lightly guarded by several Magisters dressed in red, one of whom she recognised as Mhairi, the battleaxe whose son had alerted them to the Voidwoken attack upon their home.<br/>They'd been just in time to find the skilled grenadir preparing for her heroic last stand, and had helped her swing the odds. One less orphan in Rivellon could only be a good thing, political alliegances aside.<br/>Squinting slightly, raising a hand to shield her eyes as she looked closer, she saw that the square-shouldered person on the bridge with Mhairi was Ifan. They were, from what she could see, talking, but she did not detect in their body language a sense of emergency.<br/>After a moment they embraced briefly, saluting to each other as they headed in opposite directions.</p><p class="western">Suddenly feeling overwhelmed and, not wishing to stay and examine why upon Ifan's imminent arrival, Sebille turned the way she had come and bolted, running without thinking towards – she skittered to a halt – a beauty being driven by a demon, and an abomination.</p><p class="western">She blinked. How had she let things go this far?</p><p class="western">Hot, stinging tears forced their way to her vision. Was any of this going to help her in any way except from wiping her bloody existence from the face of Rivellon? She moved to the side of the path and leant down, placing her hands on her knees, feeling as though she would retch, except for there being nothing but a sense of gnawing fear and emptiness inside her, growing inexorably wider as the days wound on.</p><p class="western">Wiping her tears roughly against the back of her hand she straightened, taking several deep breaths and turning to leave just as Ifan bounded around the curve of the road behind her. He stopped short, clapping her shoulder in greeting.<br/>"Well, I found all the supplies, and something special besides," he winked, continuing in the face of her silence, "How's my favourite Godwoken, then?"<br/>He tried to catch her eye, but upon failing to do so he went to cup her chin with his thumb and forefingers, but she jerked away.<br/>Finally meeting his amber eyes, Ifan was shocked at the expression therein.<br/>The boundless terror and suspicion made his chest ache; he longed to comfort her, but saw immediately that presently it was beyond him to do so.<br/>"Dear one? Do you feel alright? What happened?" he asked in a low, concerned tone. "You look shaken. That's not like you. Sebille?"<br/>She had already turned to leave, picking her way indecisively back up the trail towards the others, muscles in her back taut.<br/>She didn't look back.</p><p class="western">When they were all gathered back at camp together and starting to prepare the campsite for the night, Ifan stole glances at the enigmatic elf whenever he deemed her not to be looking. She hadn't said much to anyone since they'd been here, sharpening her daggers in a daze by the campfire while murmuring to herself in elvish.<br/>Try as he might, over the jovial hubbub of Fane &amp; Lohse's light-hearted bickering, he couldn't make out a word of it.<br/>With the tents set up and dinner ingested, Ifan took out a bottle of mead from his bag, uncorking it and sniffing the neck of the bottle before putting it to his lips and drinking a long, greedy slurp. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, belching as the bubbles rushed back from his stomach. The mead was fermenting a little, but it'd be fine as long as drank it tonight.<br/>Eyeing the bottle, he reckoned that half of it would get him drunk enough to sleep tonight. That meant there was enough to share, in an opportune moment.</p><p class="western">Shortly thereafter, Fane yawned theatrically, standing as he announced with pomp;<br/>"Thrilling exploits today, chaps. Keep it up. Absolutely shattered. Simply must rest," before retiring to his tent with a candle, clearly intending to keep reading.<br/>Lohse, who had been sitting motionless for a while, staring deep into the fire, jumped belatedly at his sudden motion and uttered an offhand, "yeah, me too, bushed, same, goodnight," before she also wound her way to her bedroll.<br/>Ifan swigged at his bottle, realising that he'd polished it off while staring into the hypnotic dance of the flames before him. No-one had said very much of anything this evening. He had supposed it was because of the sense of a false start imposed upon them by his dangerous detour and the delay necessitated by the sourcing of ingredients for the de-transmogrification potion, but even so, no-one had seemed impatient or annoyed with him, just a little...off.</p><p class="western">Walking a little way away behind a clump of trees, Ifan took a leak, stumbling a little on roots as he unsteadily found his footing in the dark.<br/>'<em>Rhalic aflame,' </em>he cursed, holding out his arms to steady him.<br/>The mead had definitely fermented. Staggering back to the campfire, Ifan saw no sign of Sebille sitting by the fire, nor did she emerge when he sat down cross-legged by the fire. He pulled his drudanae pipe &amp; pouch from his bag and packed, lit and puffed in contented solitude, feeling the pleasurable pull of the herb as the edges of his mind.</p><p class="western">Everything would work out. Roost might have a lead for him.<br/>Alternately, Roost might have a knife at his throat before he could say "Godwoken"; either was equally possible with the Lone Wolves. It was vital that Roost not discover that he was one of the Godwoken, that's why it had been necessary to bring his companions, despite his guilt over the ruse he was pulling.<br/>With a slow sigh, deciding to put matters beyond his control aside for the night, Ifan stashed his pipe and boots outside the tent, crawling in and going to stretch out as his elbow connected with something bony.</p><p class="western">It hissed at him through the darkness.<br/>"Why tread on me?"<br/>"<em>Sebille.</em> What on -"<br/>She cut him off with a hand over his mouth, her other hand pulling one of his to her waist.<br/>He reacted slowly, gripping her flesh as she guided his hand up the length of her torso, starting at her midriff and ending at her breast. He cupped it wholly within his palm, squeezing, hearing her hiss again, pushing against him, for once her own body feeling warmer than his.<br/>He can feel the source crackling under her skin, brimming with energy and life.<br/>For a moment, her very eyes seem to glow with it.</p><p class="western">Still unsure, Ifan tried to remove her hand from his mouth in order to speak, but she keeps the pressure firm, leaving his hands to wander her body as she stroked him gently through his breeches.<br/>The sensation of her clever hands combined with the buzz from mead and drudanae was incredible.<br/>He twitched, sweetly aching excruciatingly for a long moment before it was over.</p><p class="western">Ifan, his enjoyment cut short when he became aware, could not believe what had just happened.<br/>Not in many, many years had anything like this happened to him. Not since before his Order days had he failed a woman like this.<br/>In sheer embarrassment he tried to turn to go, but she clenched his jaw between her fingers and kissed him forcefully, roughly. He tasted blood, seeing prickly stars behind his eyes as the golden hum of pure feeling faded away and he became uncomfortably aware of the cooling, sticky mess against his skin.<br/>Sebille extends her hand to outside the tent, wiping it on the grass, cool and damp now in the night air.</p><p class="western">"Do not worry." She placed a light kiss on his cheek as she turned him to face her.<br/>"You will make up to me."<br/>Ifan's hands went to her hips and he moved to kiss her stomach but she stopped him.<br/>"Later. Sleep now, drunken man."</p><p class="western">She began to hum the lullabye from before from their night spent smoking together in the Undertaven, the one he'd heard sung a long time ago, and once again he was lulled into a deep, dreamless sleep. Her voice carried him beyond the soaring forests and clifftop heights of Driftwood to a land where fear and shame were unnecessary concepts, and the gentle skein of her voice would always lead him home again. Sebille, unable to put her mind to rest after the events of the day, continued to hum softly as she moved away from his sleeping hulk to sharpen and resharpen her knifes, needle poised, body coiled and ready, even when she seemed reposed. She waited.</p><hr/>
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<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Mardy Cows</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>After an emotionally charged morning, the team cure the cows and start heading North into the wilds.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="western">Sebille realised that she must have fallen asleep when she woke to Ifan's hot breath between her thighs, his eyes sparkling as hers opened to his eager face, flushed with lusty tenderness. She was too surprised to move, the feeling between her legs warm and undeniably pleasant. He stopped and she looked at him, noting his raw nakedness, perceiving that an emotion was driving him that went beyond payback for the previous night.<br/>Nodding at the eager question in his eyes she sighed, tilting her head back and closing her eyes as she reached for his face languidly. Pushing his bushy face back onto her body, Sebille guided his face with her hands, pulling his head back down onto her.</p><p class="western">He'd woken at dawn as usual to see her sleepy shivering body curled up next to him.<br/>She didn't wake or respond when he pulled the coverlet over her, so he'd scooped her into his arms until she'd warmed up. Except that by then he had warmed up, too.<br/>At first it started innocently, brushing her hair at the nape of her neck away from his face as it tickled his nose and kissing the spot behind her ear, eliciting a soft, sleepy moan from her that send a jolt through him. Kissing her slender bowed neck had produced much the same, except this time she stretched out onto her back, bringing one knee up and pulling the lions share of the bedroll around herself.<br/>The shock of cold air on his bare skin woke Ifan up fully, the removal of the covers exposing what his sleepy caresses had been building in him. Grinning, he'd carefully maneuvered himself within the confines of the tent until his face was a few inches from her core, breathing steadily and deeply through his mouth.<br/>She twitched at the heat, squirming a little but not yet waking.<br/>When she blinked her eyes open after a few moments he smiled up at her, his gaze wordlessly filled with his ardent question. She bit her lip and nodded in shy assent, knotting her hands in his hair as he plunged his face deeply into her fragrant centre for a long time, until she convulsed, twisting his face to kiss her as his hands took over, and she bit his shoulder to stifle her cries, drawing blood and a low growl from Ifan.<br/>Sebille witnessed a flicker of his memories, then her spirit and body were reconnected, and she rolled with a breathless laugh in his arms, naked flesh pressed to naked flesh.<br/>His body was wholly distracted by her, longing to give in to the embrace. Rather than sate himself further he pulled away with a grunt of self-denial, and tugged on his tunic and breeches, readying to pack up and depart, though the sun had barely cleared the horizon line.</p><p class="western">Nodding to her, he gruffly spoke; "So, no hard feelings?"<br/>"That is not how I would say it." Sebille replied, giving him a look that told him she more than understood what he was trying to convey.<br/>"Uskeche, please. We can talk about this, but not, uh, now. Later, that is."<br/>Sebille sniffed and turned her eyes from him in reply, pulling the covers back over herself.</p><p class="western">'Damn foot-in-mouth disease. It'll be the death of me yet,' he thought with bitterness. At the same time, he wondered why he cared so much about the passing moods of this bizarre elf assassin already famed for her cold, murderous cruelty. Hell, she'd slain her own kin as readily as he.<br/>Her character had been forged in pain, and she chose to define her life by vengeance. It was part of the reason that Ifan was so keen to stay on her good side, apart from the obvious fringe benefits of travelling with such a scintillating companion alongside.</p><p class="western">'Sure complicates things, though,' he noted, taking his leave and collecting his pack together, going to Sebille's tent to take her bedroll and strap it to his pack, as she was curled up in his. He shook the empty mead bottle from the night before just in case, but he'd well and truly drained it.<br/>As he sat by the last embers of the fire as the light of day once again took hold, Lohse padded softly out from her tent, yawning sleepily.<br/>"Morning, chief. Early start ahead?" Her tone was bright and brittle, but she spoke softly, not wanting to alert the others. Nodding up at her with his lopsided grin, Ifan pulled the map from his pack and draws a line with his finger along a few roads.<br/>"If we set off within the hour we could make it to the Paladin Bridgehead by this evening, which would see us at the sawmill the following evening, if we quick-step most of the way. Arriving too soon would be suspicious, but with yesterdays' delay and -" Ifan broke off, a wild look in his eye, "-haaku. I forgot about the ladies -" to which Lohse waggled her eyebrows.<br/>"Ooh chief, don't you just get all the breaks," she giggled suggestively. "I didn't realise that this was that kind of tour." She pouts jokingly. "You could have told me, I've been missing out! Serves me right for being such a goody-goody in this troupe. Shy girls get nowt, after all."<br/>"No, you don't understand, there were these -"<br/>She laughed. "You mean those bawdy bovines Sebille was talking about earlier? Can't wait to hear your side of the story"<br/>Ifan, unaccustomed to being teased in quite such a flirtatious tone as the one most familiar to Lohse, cleared his throat with a light cough and raised his voice;<br/>"Fane? You awake yet?"<br/>The sarcastic reply came with perfect clarity and indicated that he had not only overheard their whole conversation, but much besides in the preceding hours.<br/>"On the contrary, I've yet to sleep. What a racket the birds and the beasts make out here. On the bright side, I think I perfected the recipe for the detransmogrification potion while you were...well. It is ready."<br/>Fane poked a skeletal hand from his tent, within it a small vial of orange liquid.<br/>Ifan strode over to him to examine the contents of the vial. It looked exactly like orange juice, badly strained and swirling with granular matter near the bottom, sinking into sedimental layers as the liquid settled again.<br/>"...will it work?" Ifan eyed the vial with skepticism, to Fane's supreme irritation.<br/>"Of course it will work! I know it doesn't look polished, but that's what you get when you drag a wizard away from his materials and force him to slum it in the sticks. Quality goes way down. You have only yourself to blame," he supplied, haughtily.<br/>Ifan sighed, conceding defeat, as Lohse smirked and avoided their eyes.<br/>Taking the vial from Fane, he cast a final look back at his silent tent, turning back to regard him and Lohse. Nodding, he issued forth instructions, sounding every inch a soldier.<br/>"Pack up the tents, get everything ship-shape, douse the fire and I'll be back in half-an-hour."<br/>Hearing the tone of command in his voice they bustled to work, except for Sebille, still huddled silently in his tent.</p><p class="western">He left them, walking back to the cornfield to find the cows. They were sheltering under a tree on the far side from the path, curled around each other for warmth.<br/>He approached them, calling out a "hail!"<br/>They opened their wide, docile eyes and moo-ed softly at him.<br/>When he pulled the vial from his pocket they heaved themselves upright and trotted over, tails swinging and ears flicking.<br/>"Is this it? We can be human again? Are you sure there is enough for us both?"</p><p class="western">Ifan gulped. He hadn't thought this far ahead. He'd expected to be the delivery man, minor hero of the hour. He'd never wanted to be an arbitrater. He'd never wanted to make those choices.<br/>The cows look at the tiny vial doubtfully.<br/>"Well, Mabel, you should have it, if there's not enough for us both that is."<br/>"Why, thank-you Geraldine, you are too kind."<br/>Mabel shot Geraldine a dark sidelong look but said nothing, chewing the cud gloomily.</p><p class="western">Ifan backed away slowly.<br/>Things always turned out to be more complicated than he'd planned for. Thinking to go back down the path, he spun around and saw that Sebille had crept along behind, following him unseen.<br/>He looked at her uncertainly, not knowing what mood he'd found her in this time.<br/>Her face was a beautiful, scarred mask of studied neutrality. He could not read what lay beneath.</p><p class="western">Approaching her, he ran a hand through his uncomed, shaggy hair.<br/>"Seems there's a shortage of potion. They've chosen who should get it, though she doesn't seem happy."<br/>Sebille turned her face sideways slightly, raising an eyebrow as a corner of her mouth lifted into a smirk.<br/>"What a surprise. To my eyes they should both be steaks on plates."<br/>"Yeah, but you probably feel that way about humans, too," he chuckled, before her expression silenced him, alerting him to his huge faux-pas.<br/>'Why do I say these idiotic things to her, of all people?' Ifan castiagted himself.<br/>She shook her head a little, looking slightly disgusted by him.<br/>It made his heart hurt.<br/>Without speaking, she pulled out a clump of augmentor herb from a hidden compartment in her armour and stuffed it into his hand without a word, heading back down the path the way she'd come.<br/>He was left standing with the augmentor in one and and the vial in the other, watching her depart, feeling some very difficult things all at once. He pushed the emotions aside and bunged the augmentor into the small gap of air in the vial. The orange liquid within fizzed, and he tamped the neck with his thumb, careful not to spill any. He shook the vial vigorously until the augmentor herb could no longer be seen; the colour had changed slightly, attaining the approximate shade of a blood orange, swirling pink hues now visible.<br/>He strode back to the cows, turning to the one known as Geraldine.<br/>He offered the vial to her lips.<br/>Her eyes went wide as the other cow, Mabel, huffed and stamped. After giving a swig to Geraldine, her form became enveloped with smoke, a 'poof' sound popping through the air, and she was human once more.<br/>Her straw-like hair stuck up in clumps and she was as naked as the day she was born.<br/>Turning away from her with a blush, Ifan offered the other half of the vial to Mabel, who duly takes the dose, promptly undergoing the same process. Pointing them up the road to the witch's house, Ifan cannot quite meet their eyes as they head up the road bickering, the sun bouncing off their naked bottoms. Mabel turned as they left, giving him a sultry wink and waving in a way that made her unfettered breasts jiggle appealingly.</p><p class="western">He blushed redder and shook his head, turning to leave, stopping abruptly as he realised that Sebille hadn't returned to camp and was standing a short distance away, still watching.<br/>"You know, Uskeche, that sneaking up on people is considered a vice in some parts."<br/>His tone was light but it belayed some truth; why was she always watching him, blowing hot (though mostly cold) when it suited her and shunning him the remainder of the time?<br/>Ifan liked to think of himself as a convivial sort, in control of the situation, always able to de-escalate matters enough to at least draw weapons before his opponent had a chance to get to theirs. She narrowed her eyes, moving towards him like a shadow, stopping a few feet away, simply gazing at him.<br/>The intensity of her eyes still made him feel uneasy. He enjoyed looking at her – enjoyed looking at elves generally – but the sensation of being watched by them, her especially, was something that even he, raised in their homelands, never felt completely comfortable with. They saw too much. They saw the all in everything. That kind of vision and clarity could be overwhelming for mortal minds to grasp, and so it was the case with Ifan. Despite his wealth of experience with the elves, he was and remained a human. Part of the race responsible for the annihilation of their homeland and tribes.<br/>Sebille moved closer to him, sensing the melancholy tumult of his thoughts, replying in a flat tone,<br/>"In many others it is preferable to dying."<br/>Ifan snorted. "Those tricks? To keep you safe? Tscha!"<br/>Sebille did not react, so he continued, "so, um, why are you here? It was my understanding that we're travelling together, so it would be preferable to me if you could be a companion, rather than a shadow-foot at my heels." He smiled lopsidedly at her. "Friends don't stalk friends in the shadows."</p><p class="western">This finally got through to her, and a giggle escaped her lips, quickly covering with a cough.<br/>She nodded, and reached for his chin with her small, slender hand, pulling his eyes to look into hers.<br/>"I want you to see the all in me. You feel my flesh and see my body, but you do not yet know how to see me, Ifan ben Mezd. You see Sebille the hunter, Sebille the assassin, Sebille your lover, but in fragments. You are confused because you cannot yet see the all."<br/>Patting his cheek reassuringly, she asserted firmly, "it will come. For now, have this."<br/>The elf placed her hands on his cheeks and kissed him softly on his craggy mouth, her smooth skin brushing against the matted fuzz of his beard as her tongue explored his lips, his mouth opening to deepen their display of affection as his hands rest on her waist, but she pulls away, shaking her head.<br/>"Always so hungry. One of these days you'll eat me whole." She smiled, and together they walked in step back to camp.</p><p class="western">The sun was rising high into the sky now, and it beyond time for them to make tracks. Hauling the equipment onto their backs, the four of them trudged eastwards through the rolling fields, passing the witch's house where squabbling could be heard from within, beyond to where the fields ended and the landscape changed, the air becoming brisk and cool as they headed uphill into less temperate climes.</p><hr/>
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<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Knights in Shining Armour</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Flashback to Ifan and Lohse's first meeting during the war.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="western"><strong>1242AD – Arx<br/></strong><br/>Ifan slammed down the tankard on the table to apreciative roars from the surrounding crowd.<br/>"Pay up, Brutus. You <em>lose</em>." He grinned broadly.<br/>The burly man with a flushed face sat opposite him grunts sullenly and pulls out a handful of cutter from his pocket reluctantly, aware of the numerous witnesses surrounding them.</p><p class="western">'<em>Besides</em>', Brutus thought, watching a good chunk of his pay slide down the proverbial drain,<br/><em>I'm already too drunk to stand, let alone be of any use with a weapon. Let bygones be bygones, it was just a game</em>.'<br/>Standing up and meeting the Commander's eyes, he nodded respectfully before exiting to relieve himself. Void knows how ben Mezd put away the liquor like that.</p><p class="western">Ifan scooped his winnings into his gold pouch, sliding a silver with an appreciative wink to the barmaid and motioned with his fingers in a circle above the table, indicating his desire for another round of drinks.<br/>He looked around at the crowd, most of them being men in his regiment, already looking somewhat the worse for wear from their liberal consumption of great mugs of the grain spirit that was the particular speciality of the locale.<br/>"Bottoms up" he roared as the barmaid arrived back with tankards full of the lethal brew, a slew of hands descending upon the drinks tray until, each grabbing a flagon then retreating, it was divested entirely of its former contents. The harried-looking barmaid scurried back behind the bar, clearly perturbed by the rowdy squadron overtaking her normally-sedate establishment with their rambunctious antics.</p><p class="western">"Cheers, to a successful campaign," he hailed the assembled men, raising his tankard aloft, "and a moment of remembrance," looking down, he put his hand over his heart, "for our fallen brothers. May their souls be throned in glory in the Hall of Echoes."<br/>The throng roared in assent, clanking tankards and drinking deeply.<br/>In the moment of silence that followed, Ifan raised a strong, fine hand, calling all attention to him.</p><p class="western">"From tomorrow, you will all be returning to serve Lucian on the home front. I have business abroad to attend to, so I will not be able to accompany you to the harbour tomorrow. The ship that is docked there will be leaving at two after the noon, make sure," he lowered his voice, staring them down, "<em>that you are on it</em>, men. I won't have any fuck-ups like last time."</p><p class="western">Several men became simultaneously sheepish at this, looking away from him in case he singled them out, but Ifan had said his piece. Tonight at least, he would let them loose to behave like the young men they were, rather than soldiers of the Divine, attempting valiantly to hold the battle line between their world and the Void.<br/>"That is all. Go!"<br/>He gave them a flash of his broad grin.<br/>"Tonight is for merriment. Good hunting."<br/>Finished with his oration, he drained his tankard in one.<br/>Some of the men, those who had been watching the Commander's drink tally throughout the evening, gaped silently at him as he steadily strode past them.</p><p class="western">Quietly scanning the crowd, he pulled aside a young soldier whose most prominent feature was his fawn-coloured floppy fringe. Ifan appraised him quickly, before speaking in a much lower tone than he had used to address the crowd.<br/>"Say, boy, do you know that musician who was here last night? Name's on the tip of my toungue. Started with an 'L'..."<br/>"Lohse?" The young soldier filled in hesitantly. <em>Everyone</em> knew about Lohse in these parts.<br/>"That's the one. Her performance last night was..." he smiled in such a way that left no illusions as to his intent. "D'you know if she's still around? I'd like to -" he coughed, grinning, "- ask her a few questions about her <em>technique</em>."<br/>He winked at the young soldier, who blushed to the tips of his boots at the insinuation.<br/>'<em>Great Gods, he's green.</em>' Ifan thought, feeling somewhat embarassed despite himself, but covering it up with a gruff rebuke.<br/>"Well? Speak up, boy, you're local to here aren't you, we picked you up last week a town over. Not to mention," he infused his voice with a growl, "you look like the <em>musical</em> type..."<br/>"Ah, I, uh you might still find her here. I,uh, saw a flyer off of main street that said she'd be performing here for a week or so." The young man stuttered, overfaced by the direct attention of the Commander, whom he'd not exchanged more than a handful of brief interactions with since he'd joined the company.<br/>'<em>Finally, some useful information,</em>' Ifan impatiently waited for more, prompting when there was none,<br/>"Can you find out for me?"<br/>The young soldier looked stricken. Ifan straightens a little.<br/>"I'd consider it a great service, greenhorn. Send her to my apartments if you find her. Tell her that I am a great fan of hers and would be delighted to part with a generous sum for a little of her time."<br/>Lost for words, the fawn-haired soldier saluted him, "Sir."</p><p class="western">Ifan nodded, giving the man a quick, slightly lecherous smile before turning to head up to his quarters, looking forward to the potential distraction of the enchanting musician. He'd made it this far, and tomorrow brought an enirely new kind of objective for him. He wasn't entirely sure he was up to the task, but Lucian had trusted him, and him alone, to do this, so by the Divine, he'd do it. He'd do it if it killed him.<br/>'<em>Too much is at stake...' </em>he began to fret, before steadying himself. '<em>Whoa there, </em>Ifan.<br/>'<em>It'll pull together somehow.'<br/></em>Tonight, though, he'd allow himself to forget about all that for a while.</p><p class="western">Ifan's suite was basic, though much less spartan than he'd become accustomed to whilst being on the road with the Order. It was poky, the furniture crowding the small space. To sleep on there was a single wooden cot padded with an itchy straw mattress. His battered, bulging military pack rested against the nightstand alongside, neatly packed. His weapons lay stashed beneath the bed, where he kept them in every room he occupied, no matter where he laid his head, primarily for easy access in the event of an ambush.<br/>His other, more duplicitious reason, for keeping them there was that it represented, to him, a necessary concealment of the elephant which crowded him in any room that he entered; the fact that he, despite his relatively modest years, had seen more bloodshed than most men his age, and dealt more deaths than some veterans. It had weighed upon him increasingly as the years passed, his nightmares sometimes getting so debilitating that he'd sometimes taken to roaming in the night, bringing along his soul wolf for some kind of company during the long, haunted small hours.<br/>There was a small chest of drawers at the end of the cot, upon which sat a large bowl and a jug of water, beside which were his many pendants, waiting for a more informal setting in which to be worn.<br/>Two roughly constructed wooden chairs occupied opposite sides of the room, and facing the nightstand a small fire burned merrily in the soot-choked hearth. He entered, swinging the key from his finger, placing it on the nightstand and pulling both of the chairs to face the fire, inclined slightly towards each other.<br/><br/></p><p class="western">He smoothed his hair, wishing for a moment that he'd a looking-glass, before taking one long stride over to the bowl and splashing water on his face from the jug. He washed his hands and face thoroughly, combing through his short dark beard with his fingers, then occupied one of the chairs before the fire, pulling some recent correspondance from his pack and reading through it again. He sighed, annoyed afresh at the overly-formal language in which it was addressed.<br/>'<em>No room for common talk or common sense with some of them," </em>he thought with a slight gloominess, but not really occupied with the page before him. Placing it aside on the cot behind him, Ifan rummaged in his pocket and pulled out his tinderbox and a pipe with some snuff. Packing and lighting it, he let the smoke steady his neves, puffing away contemplatively as the liquor in his system began to sour his mood.<br/>'<em>How long has it been? Surely, no, the lad'd not welch out on an order from his direct Commander, even if that order was a bit-" </em>he began to feel a little foolish "-<em>beyond the pale. Though,"</em> he recalled his earlier days as a dogsbody in the Order, a good handful of years since, "-<em>not totally unheard of.</em>"</p><p class="western">His thoughts turned to Lohse. Her performance last night had been good, this was true, but he'd been drawn to something in the way the young woman entranced the crowd, seeming to appeal to all of them as individuals without ever singling one person out. He wanted to see <em>that</em> energy up close. And, if he was honest, he wouldn't mind it getting personal either. As his drunken state began to lead him down this path of lecherous thought, he heard a light knock at the door.</p><p class="western">"<em>Enter.</em>" His voice came out gruffer than he meant it to; he cleared his throat and stood, placing his pipe onto the mantlepiece, as into the room came Lohse's light step, her lute held carefully in her right hand.<br/>"Cheif. Your man -" she smirked as she said this word with more than a hint of derision, "- summoned me here, at your behest I assume?" She gave a brief curtsey, starting to continue, "My repertoire is not confined to taproom ballads, I can sing anything. Epics, opera, if that's your taste, lullabyes so sweet that a nursery of children would not -"</p><p class="western">He cut her off with a wave of his hand, placing his gold pouch on the chest of drawers next to his seat, beckoning her to take the chair opposite him, waiting until she had made herself comfortable before resuming his former position before the fire.</p><p class="western">"That's better. Don't worry, my dear, I'm a connoisseur of song, but I loathe business talk when music is involved, fret not, you'll leave this room compensated for your talents." He flashed her what was meant to be a reassuring smile, but it contained a few too many teeth to put her at ease.<br/>"What type of song would you like, <em>Sir</em>?" She emphasised the word, adding a sheen of sarcasm to her pronunciation. He let his smile widen.</p><p class="western">"How many love-songs do you know?" Lohse counted for a moment.<br/>"Sixty-three. No, sixty-four, if you count the crossover that eveyone argues about, whether it's an epic because of the iambic structure and choral structure but -" Ifan cut her off.<br/>"How about Aníron?" Lohse's eyes widened slightly as she recalled it. Surely he couldn't mean for her to sing it? She obligingly strummed it out in full, swaying slightly at the chorus, as he watched her with an amused glint in his eyes.</p><p class="western">He let her finish, clapping politely as she took a small bow, before asking her,<br/>"How is it that you know how to play it, but not to sing it?"<br/>She appraised him for a moment, weighing her words.<br/>"The world's a big place, chief. I've shared songs and lore with all races; no prejudice here!" She beamed a bright smile at him, hoping the answer would suffice. He nodded, seeming to accept the vague explanation.<br/>"Well, thank-you for that. It's an old favourite of mine, and quite apt of me to recall it now. Would you play it again, please?"<br/>It was the 'please' that caught her attention. Something in his tone had changed, the odd intense glances he'd given her when she entered no longer present; something had opened up in him, just a crack. She began to strum the lute again, playing the opening bars, and Ifan began to sing the lyrics in a rich, deep sonorous tone, his accent fluid and pronunciation spot-on.<br/>Lohse kept playing, watching the shapes his mouth made as he sang in the unfamiliar language. The words sounded sad, infused with a great sense of longing and desire, though she could not understand them. Something about the way he sang it made her heart thump faster, as she struggled to keep her focus on the fretboard.<br/>At the end of the song, Lohse extended the final note and Ifan matched her, the clear sound stretching with her strumming, their eyes sparkling a friendly challenge as each tried to keep the song from ending. Lohse won, Ifan coughing as his lungs fully emptied. Then he laughed, grinning so hard his face lit up.<br/>"<em>Thanks,</em> that was really something." He offered her the gold pouch, but she declined.<br/>"You're telling me, that's some pipes you've got there. Pity."<br/>"Where's the pity?"<br/>"<em>You</em> are in entirely the wrong line of work. You could make a tidy living in my profession with a voice like that, and the fans -" she broke off and gave him the once over "-well, at least, the type of fans <em>you'd</em> get..."<br/>Winking, she trailed off suggestively, before continuing to talk.<br/>"Oh well, life's life, think nothing of it, I'm sure you're happy with your choices as much as any of us are." She smiled wryly and changed the subject.<br/>"Got a smoke around here? Could use something to drown out the sounds of your boys downstairs get some real shut-eye." As if to emphasise her point, they both at this moment heard a loud crash, then a cheer , as Lohse finished, "...they seem to be very much <em>enjoying</em> themselves tonight."</p><p class="western">Ifan smiled at her with all his teeth, shrugging as he said apologetically, "boys will be boys," and took the pipe down from the mantle. Cleaning out the ash and debris from his previous session, he went to his pack, rummaging deep within for several minutes before producing a small fold of paper. Opening it up to reveal a small quantity of ground-up drudanae, he gave her a confident, lopsided smile and confirmed, "you meant some of this?"</p><p class="western">Lohse exhaled happily. "Whew, I thought I could smell a hint of that. Lucky me! Sure, chief, light us up."<br/>He took a pinch of snuff and mixed it with a smaller pinch the drudanae, mixing them in his palm before loading up the pipe and offering it over to her.<br/>"At your pleasure, m'lady."</p><p class="western">She took the pipe with a delicate flourish, giggling a little as he produced his tinderbox, striking up a match to the bowl as she took a long, experienced puff. Exhaling in a controlled stream through her mouth, Lohse choked back a cough.<br/>"All mine, milor-," she broke off, overwhelmed in a spasm of spluttering, half-laughing, half-coughing, eventually managing to choke out words again.<br/>"Damn, that's strong! Not bad <em>at all</em>, though you must try the strains from Driftwood. They <em>really</em> knock you flat if you're not careful. I knew a lizard who – nevermind, poor etiquette, isn't it, to talk about it whilst engaging in it?"</p><p class="western">Ifan took the pipe as she offered it back to him, quickly puffing to keep it burning. The added drudanae made the smoke harsher than his usual snuff, and he coughed up his first hit.<br/>Lohse laughed at him, a delightful peal that seemed to twinkle across a melodic scale.<br/>"Stings, right? Try it again, chief, you'll get the hang."<br/>He does as instructed, managing to hold his breath this time, though his chest spasmed in irritation as he fought against his reflex to cough his lungs up.<br/>Breathing out slowly and carefully, Ifan's head buzzed with the sensation that was becoming increasingly familiar as he climbed the ranks of the Order. They had their own unique pressures. This was one solution.</p><p class="western">He tapped the pipe's ash into the fire, making up another drudanae mix and loading the pipe again. This time, he took the first hit and held it for a long time before steadily exhaling into the fireplace.<br/>Lohse whooped, a little lubricated by the concoction, "There you go! Smoking like a real man!"<br/>Ifan coughed up the last of the smoke as he blushed, handing her the pipe.<br/>"Glad to meet your standards, m'lady." He chuckled, feeling the effect of the smoke seep through his body, limbs loosening from their customary regimental stance. "Hang on a moment, I think I've got a little something..."<br/>Standing with a sway that forced him to grab the back of the chair as he went in order to keep his balance, he went to his pack again, pulling a half-full bottle of mead from the side pocket. Returning to his seat at the hearth, he kicked out his legs with the soles of his thick boots facing the fire and uncorked it, offering it to her, "...here."<br/>She took it, taking a sip. "Mm. It's good. It this a honey mix?"<br/>Ifan nodded. "Order rations, from the beehives of the Divine himself. Can't get anything quite like it abroad, and believe me, I've tried. This is my last bottle." Grinning ruefully, he explained, "When we set off, we're each allocated a certain tally from the stocks. Once we're through our ration, the Order couriers have us struck off the list until the end of the allotted time. I, uh, didn't quite make mine last the distance."<br/>He shrugged, "But there's always more once we're back home. Quite the tipple, huh?"</p><p class="western">Lohse motioned for the bottle imperiously and took another sip.<br/>"Ahh, <em>now</em> I can appreciate it properly, it didn't taste quite the same without the <em>provenance</em>."<br/>Ifan realised he was teasing her and went to take the bottle from her, but she quickly pulled it from his reach, taking another quick sip before she handed it back to him, laughing.<br/>"Hey, now." Ifan took ahold of her wrist. "Don't tease a poor fool who can't handle his drudanae."<br/>She giggled, leaning back in her chair, poking his outstretched boot with one of her own dainty slippers, bell at the end of the toe jingling softly. "Hey yourself, silly. I mean, I like the mead, but booze is booze, right?"<br/>She closed her eyes, sighing "it's all the same buzz at the end of the night."</p><p class="western">Ifan looked from her into the fire, thinking.<br/>"I suppose for me this is a token of home that I can keep...close. You're correct, but allow me my..."<br/>He looked back at her, pausing, and her eyes cracked to look at him as he broke into a wan smile.<br/>"<em>Sentimentality.</em>"<br/>She snorted a little. "A fine look for a soldier. Really, chief, I don't know you from Braccus Rex, but even I can tell you have some reservations about whatever kind of life you've got going on there."<br/>He pulled himself more upright in his chair, annoyance rising. '<em>The cheek of her. Pretty girls...</em>'<br/>Lohse, reading his body language, backtracked, "Sorry, that sounded...judgemental. What I meant is..." She searched for words that would convey her sentiment adequately without offending him further.<br/>"...Are you sure you're <em>making a difference</em> with what you're doing? I mean, for the good of...something. Even just yourself."</p><p class="western">Ifan considered a moment, ire receding as she saw that her plain speech was simply how she communicated, not intended to provoke his wrath, just stimulate a conversation. He felt oddly touched. He couldn't remember the last time someone had talked to him like this; not as a superior, or a grunt, or a crusader of Lucian or a tough soldier in the rank-and-file. Like a friend would.</p><p class="western">As he considered her words, he realised that he was no longer sure. He'd joined the Order soon after leaving the elvish homelands, fuelled by a need to avenge the death of his parents' at the hands of the Black Ring cult. They'd trained him, fed him, <em>shaped</em> him, and he in turn, served them faithfully.</p><p class="western">Still, questions lingered, dark in his mind, eating the moments in the dark before dawn when he would habitually wake early, turning over and over the threads that did not add up. Rather than resolving the situation, after several years of toeing the line and ascending the ranks, he had more loose threads than he'd started with. Still, he believed in Lucian. That, as least, was a bond from his past that he could trust. True, their paths had diverged, but Ifan was confident that after the conclusion of tomorrow's business, he would be able to rest easy in the assurance that both the human and the elves were satisfied, and the Black Ring finally annihilated. The means were brutal, but Lucian had assured him that the ends more than justified them.</p><p class="western">Opening his mouth to speak, he saw that as he'd been contemplating, she had fallen asleep in her chair, mead bottle by the leg of her chair where it had fallen from her outstretched hand. There was perhaps a finger-width of the golden liquid left at the bottom.<br/>"<em>Lohse." </em>He growled softly in annoyance and she let out a short snort of a snore.<br/>His expression softening a fraction, he reached out to tug her at sleeve lightly. She didn't stir. With a small huff of effort, Ifan reached and scooped his arms under her knees and armpits, lifting her up with no real difficulty into his lean arms.<br/>She stirred, letting out a string of gibberish but not waking. Stealing a quick sniff of her fiery hair, he slid her smoothly into the cot, setting the rough blanket over her and moving back to his chair on tip-toe.<br/>Eyeing the last of the bottle, he shrugged and stretched down for it, polishing off the last drops, standing the bottle carefully on the chest of drawers and stretching out before the embers of the dying fire.</p><p class="western">He slowly became aware of being awake, the discomfort caused from a night in his chair making itself apparent as soon as he stirred. Prickles of pain ran down his stiff legs towards his numb feet as he shifted his position, hands gripping the arms of the chair to pull himself upright.<br/>Stretching expansively, he cast his eyes behind him to his cot. Empty. Ah, well. Kept things simple.<br/>He placed his belongings neatly in his rucksack, looking out of the window at the colour of the sky; still blue-black, with streaks of gold beginning to appear at the horizon. Time to go. Hauling his weighty pack up onto his back, Ifan gave the sparse little room once last look over, smiling to himself with warmth as he mentally filed away another enjoyable evening he'd spent with some decent company. It was times like these that kept him warm out in the field, when things could seem really bleak. It was important to make human connections, perhaps in this line of work more than others, but it could get risky if anyone got too close. Better for all involved to part ways before the mood soured.<br/>Setting his face in a soldier's mask of stern authority, he strode into the narrow hall, descended the stairs, crossed the bar, waving a good morning to the barmaid, up already and scrubbing the vast tankards, who turned away with a peevish expression.</p><p class="western">Out in the street it was too early for the usual bustle of thoroughfare, and Ifan roamed the silent streets alone, heading covertly and swiftly for the dock. He had a boat to catch, too, but it was highly necessary that no-one be made aware of his whereabouts for the next tenday, lest the nature of his mission be discovered, and the operation sabotaged. He <em>couldn't</em> afford to let that happen. Crossing through the great city gates, the arch towering about him, he looked towards the harbour ahead. '<em>No sign yet</em>' he fretted, hurrying along to where the boats were moored, their sails clattering ominously in the low wind. Scanning around in an arc, Ifan's eye was struck by a faint flash of green. He paused, holding his breath, waiting until it came again to let it out in a hiss. <em>There.</em></p><p class="western">Rising from the mist, he saw the vessel now; a small, flat-bottomed single sail lateen. Standing on the dock was a hooded figure. After a moment, they extended their hand and a flare of green light glowed in their palm. They clapped their other hand over it, quickly snuffing the light. Ifan stole over, but he was still more than ten paces away when the figure looked up at him, alert to his presence.<br/>He waited until Ifan was a few paces before him before raising a hand in greeting.<br/>"Ifan ben Mezd. I see you."<br/>"Methrendel. It has been too long entirely since I have seen <em>you.</em>"</p><p class="western">They embraced briefly, before Methrendel stepped away and said, soft and urgent, "Come now, there is no time to lose. We shall have time enough on the journey ahead." He ushered Ifan into the boat, smiling amusedly as the soldiers' heavy steps sent the craft rocking to and fro. Waiting for him to take a seat before lightly pushing the craft from the dock, he lightly stepped onto the rear of the craft, tugging at the sail until it caught the breeze, then, cautiously steered them through the still waters of the harbour and out onto the open sea, the mist rising into the first blood-red rays of dawn as they left Arx behind them in apprehensive silence at what lay ahead.</p><hr/>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Cold Comfort</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Having reached the sawmill, the team hang fire to decide on a plan and bed down for the night.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="western">As they headed Northwards, past the Paladins and up into the wilds, conversation, which had already been becoming gradually tenser since Driftwood, ceased completely. They trudged for hours in silence, encountering nobody, watching the lush countryside and tilled farmlands give way to crags and sparse grass, trees becoming scarcer the further they went.</p><p class="western">On the morning of the fourth day, as they gathered before the fire to break their fast, Lohse broke the silence, tentatively looking to Ifan.<br/>"So, uh, a bit eleventh hour of me and all, Chief, but I've been thinking. What if we come up with a plan where we're <em>not</em> the bait?"<br/>He shot her a look, eyes narrowing, and she thought he'd snap at her in refusal. Instead, he puffed a huff of frustration. "I suppose you have a better suggestion?"<br/>"Well, I don't know...you go in first, tell him that you <em>almost</em> got us here but we gave you the slip at the last minute. Then...oh wait. How many of them did you say there were in there?"</p><p class="western">A jaw in Ifan's muscle jumped. He'd not said. Fact of the matter was, a fair number, all trained to kill and armed to the teeth. His plan was sketchy at best, but up until this point he'd felt assured that the group was with him, and he trusted their judgement. Were they trusting his too much? Self-doubt began to gnaw at him. He'd presumed they'd easily overpower Roost and perhaps a bodyguard if necessary before extracting the information he needed and leaving. That, he was now beginning to recognise, was a plan with more holes than a cheesewheel.<br/>"Several," he tersely admitted. "Armed and expecting us. I know that I'm asking a lot of you -" he broke off, looking at Fane, who waved him off, then to Sebille, who stared him down until he broke eye contact, glancing down at his muddy boots for a moment, "- but I shan't chain you, and they'll not be permitted to lay a hand on you. That much I assure you."</p><p class="western">No-one said anything, but their reticence was apparent. With a sprouting seed of panic blooming in Ifan's chest, he relented.<br/>"We'll hang fire for now; scout the area, see if there are any weak points in their defenses, plan our best routes of attack and defence."<br/>He picked up a nearby stick, poking it into the earth and drawing a rough blueprint of the sawmill.<br/>"There's a side passage that leads to a path with a log bridge next to the coast, but from where we are it'd take half a day to retrace our way back to the route. From where we are now, I reckon our best option is to smooth-talk the boys into standing down long enough for us to beat whatever we need from Roost, before making an exit sharp-ish. Still got some of those vials, Fane?"<br/>The Eternal sniffed. "I do happen to have a small supply. But after last time, are you sure this is all <em>entirely</em> necessary?"<br/>"Unless you want the whole pack on you at once on their home turf, I suggest you hand those out before we head in there and save us all a lot of rest and recuperation from crossbow bolts and oil burns when they realise what we're up to. Which they will."<br/>Fane snapped back, "Well, if they're as intelligent as yourself, I'm sure they'll have <em>absolutely </em>no problems seeing through your facade, but here," the Eternal held out three of the vials, "take one each, go on."<br/>"And don't say any of this was my fault when it comes back to bite your fleshy posterior."<br/>Ifan took them all, throwing one to Lohse and giving a sharp look to Sebille before pocketing the other two.</p><p class="western">"Well then team," he bristled with energy, casting his gaze around the clearing they'd paused in, "let's set up camp."<br/>Scouting around for fallen branches and other debris, he set about building a rudimentary shelter, twisting stretchy branches around unyielding logs which he leant in a circle at intervals, pointing upwards to a common centre which he secured with a length of rope from his pack. The base structure solid, he looked at the others, Fane still reading, ignoring the request for help, as Sebille gathered a bundle of flexible twigs and Lohse hummed gently to herself, staring at an invisible mid-point, her eyes slightly out of focus. Sighing at Fane, he nodded gruffly in thanks to Sebille.<br/>They sat beside each other on the ground, focusing on weaving the pile of twigs into wind-proof walls that could be covered with moss to keep the rain out if needed. It was the way one made a home, back in the homelands. Usually, these were grand affairs, taking several decades and a workforce of hundreds, but the basic principles of construction remained basically the same no matter what the size of the dwelling.<br/>This one they completed in under four hours, and it was big enough that they could all huddle inside like sardines, if the tents failed them or they were forced to abandon their packs. Standing up from their haunches, Ifan's knees protesting with stabs of pain as he straightened his legs, they admired their handiwork, their hands accidentally brushing.<br/>They both felt it again; the flicker of Source passing between them like static as their fingers met lightly. They both pulled their hands back quickly, looking at each other with wary expressions before turning away silently.</p><p class="western">"Hey!" They both turned to Lohse, who was looking at them intently.<br/>They both froze, until she laughed at the expression on their faces.<br/>"What? I was just going say that I am <em>star</em>ving, what's for eats?"<br/>Ifan unfroze, moving to his pack with a chuckle and taking a hunk of bread and some cheese out, tossing them over her.<br/>"Will these do?"<br/>She stuffed it in her face before nodding, chewing rapidly, mouth distended.<br/>He continued to rummage, pulling out a paper-wrapped something from his bag and offering some to Sebille.<br/>She took it curiously and sniffed, before licking it. "Cow?"<br/>He chuckled again. "Beef, <em>Uskeche</em>, pickled in whisperwood wine."<br/>She bit off a tiny piece, letting it sit on her tongue for a while before swallowing. Flashes of flowers in a field, the bright sun above her, flickered across her mind like ripples on a pond.<br/>He asked her, "is it good?"<br/>She blinked once and nodded, peeling off another small strip before handing the package back. "It was...happy," she smiled. "A happy cow."<br/>Lohse and Fane looked at her slightly askance – elves were so weird about food – but Ifan beamed, as if this was brilliant news to him.</p><p class="western">He touched her elbow lightly as he moved past her, and the other half of their team both witnessed the light flush across her cheekbones as her eyes flickered to follow him for a moment, before again affecting that steely stare which they were so accustomed to see shaping her aquiline features. It might have been a trick of the light, but her face had seemed truly content when she looked at him. Undeniably, there'd been something between the two of them since Fort Joy, a certain understanding, but it was becoming clear to Fane and Lohse that perhaps Ifan's priorities, nay, his judgement, may be deeply suspect. Though they said nothing to marr the cameraderie, each secretly wondered about their own safety within the group. Was Divinity really something that could be shared? Were they being played for fools by a vengeful elf with a taste for the macabre, and her infatuated can't-be-alone puppy?<br/>As they stewed in their separate thoughts, Ifan finished up readying the campsite and Sebille took out a small whetstone and reoccupied herself with making sure her weaponry was in deadly condition.<br/>They had a long night ahead.</p><hr/>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Funeral for a Friend</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Sebille runs off in the middle of the night to attend to a very urgent call.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="western">Ifan took the first watch after sunset; Lohse and Fane had headed to their respective tents early, promising to relieve him around midnight. The sun had just begun to dip down over the edge of the hills to the west, casting a radiant golden glow over everything it touched. Sebille sat cross-legged in the centre of the wicker hut they'd built over the course of the afternoon, eyes closed. He went over to her, asking in a low, gruff voice, "can I get you anything before I set up on watch?"</p><p class="western">She shook her head slowly, not opening her eyes, and he began to move away.</p><p class="western">Sebille reached out to him, tapered fingers lightly enclosing his wrist.</p><p class="western">"Wait," she demanded.</p><p class="western">He looked at his wrist, then at her, waiting expectantly. When, after a long pause, she made no sound or move to let him go, he tugged to loosen her grasp.</p><p class="western">"Shh!" She hissed urgently. "Listen!"</p><p class="western">He stilled himself, quietening his breathing and straining his ears to pick up on what she was hearing. The wind rustled the leaves of the leaves high above their heads. Birdsong chattered to and fro, the hidden orators hidden within the greenery of the late summer foliage. The occasional yowl of an animal could be heard, far in the distance.</p><p class="western">"What do you hear?" He spoke softly, stroking the fingers of his immobilised hand across her wrist, still clenched painfully tightly around his.</p><p class="western">"I hear the sounds of suffering." Her whispered reply was choked with emotion in a way he'd never heard it before.</p><p class="western">She suddenly looked to him very sad and small, curled up like that in the dark shelter that could accommodate four others her size.</p><p class="western">"Uskeche..."</p><p class="western">Stooping to kiss the top of her head, Ifan knelt down, ducking his head into the shelter and shuffling behind her, going deeper into the cocoon and assuming a kneeling position behind her. She remained where she was, her body loosening slightly. He bent his mouth to the nape of her neck, exhaling deeply onto her bare shoulders. She shuddered, leaning back into him a little. He placed his hands on her shoulders and squeezed them reassuringly.</p><p class="western">"Tomorrow's a fresh day. Plenty of time to track down and deal with this trouble you speak of; for now, just get some rest."</p><p class="western">Sebille opened her eyes, craning around to him.</p><p class="western">"Fresh day? Fresh blood. Fresh meat." She rose to her feet a little unsteadily, turning her whole body to face him as she towered over his kneeling form.</p><p class="western">"I am needed. I hear them now; they mourn. I must go to them."</p><p class="western">She turned to leave. It was Ifan's turn to catch her wrist.</p><p class="western">"Who do you hear, damn it? Demons, spirits? Who is mourning."</p><p class="western">"My kind." She turned away, putting physical distance between them to emphasise her words. Ifan suddenly recalled, with breathtaking clarity after all these hazy years, witnessing a funeral rite in the elvish homeland.<br/>"Who...is it?" He asked, wincing and stopping himself before he used the word.<br/>"I do not know who died. They were very precious to their tribe; they are announcing the funeral. I must go."<br/>Evading him, she darted from her seat and disappeared into the darkness of the night before he could stop her.<br/>'<em>Damn it to the Void'</em> Ifan cursed internally, before quickly stepping over to the tents and hissing,<br/>"Fane? Lohse?"<br/>"Present." He heard the sardonic tones of Fane, then saw a skeletal hand reach out of the tent, patting about near his leg. It alarmed Ifan in a primal way, looking at the eerie whiteness of animated bones feeling about near his feet. Looking down closer in the dark, Ifan spotted a gauntlet and kicked it within reach of the bony arm. Its' prize attained, it disappeared momentarily into the tent before Fane, cowl in place, stuck his head out.<br/>"<em>Already?</em> I just got to a good bit in my book..."<br/>Ifan nodded.<br/>"Surely it's not time for me to take over just yet? Sundown was barely an hour since."<br/>The agitated man made a clenching motion with his hands in the darkness.<br/>'<em>Now is not the time for this.' </em>"Just <strong>do</strong> it, you hear? I have to go." The command came out with a knife-edge, and Fane, clearly not happy about being spoken to in such a manner, reluctantly complied with a loud huff, but Ifan had already fled into the night after the impulsive elf, heart pounding as his legs propelled him through the darkness.</p><p class="western">Luckily for Ifan, he realised as he sprinted, after his spending so much time in such close proximity with Sebille lately, he could have located her by scent alone if somebody had gouged out his eyes.<br/>It posed no real issue to follow her trail, and he slowed, pausing for a moment to summon Afrit before continuing, beginning to relish the familiar feeling of running free through the night with his wolf at his side. Catching sight of the moon glowing hazily through the light cover of clouds, he and Afrit stopped, raising their heads and howling in unison.<br/>In the silence that followed, he heard it.<br/>Drifting through the still night air came the sound of a wood-flute, a plaintive whisper through the trees. Sniffing the air and straining his ears, he proceeded towards the sound, Sebille's scent still fresh as he wound his way along the dark roads until he came across a hidden pathway. The sound was close now, and he wound his way up the curving path, both the sound and Sebille now imminently before him.<br/>He was brought to an immediate halt by the unpleasantly familiar sensation of a dagger at his throat.<br/>"You were not summoned. This is not your place, human."<br/>The elf's voice was hostile, and he withdrew his dagger an inch, giving Ifan the option to back away, clearly set upon allowing him no further.<br/>Ifan raised his palms to the elf in a submissive gesture.<br/>"That's understandable. My condolences for your loss."<br/>Nodding sharply, the elf says, "we lose many, and make few. It is our unmaking. Please go now."<br/>Ifan grimaces slightly, unwilling to drop it.<br/>"Say, have you seen an elf with a curly scar -" he gestured approximately to the area on his own face, knowing that the elf could see better than he in the gloom, "- about yea high," he motioned a half-foot above his head and was about to continue when the elf before him nodded once.<br/>"Yes." He said. "She arrived shortly before yourself." His eyes narrowed in suspicion.<br/>"You mean no harm? If so I will fetch."<br/>Ifan spread his palms open and tried to explain.<br/>"We were travelling together, our campsite is..." He tried to remember how long he'd run through the moonlit woods, but realised that he didn't know where exactly he was in that moment. "...Over there a ways away." He gestured awkwardly into the void of darkness behind him.<br/>"She heard your song back there and made her way here as if her feet were aflame. I followed to make sure -". Running the sentence into a mumble, he finished up with, "- so yes, be so kind as to fetch her and I shall wait here, on my honour."<br/>The elf's expression remained neutral as he nodded once and swept away up the path. Shortly thereafter, Sebille stalked down trailed by the same elf, and hissed crossly at him.<br/>"Why do you follow?"<br/>"How about we agree to stop having this conversation?" Ifan's tone was sombre but his face betrayed his ebullient mood.<br/>"<em>Please</em> Ifan."<br/>'<em>Is that the shadow of a smile</em>?' Ifan wondered, seeing the brief expression on her face, curving her lips past her teeth which glinted white for a second in the low light.<br/>"Wait for me at the bottom of the lane. I shall not be long."<br/>She took his hand for a moment. "<em>Thank-you</em>." Then she disappeared back up the path.</p><p class="western">Ifan waited as he'd been bidden, looking around at his surroundings as much as the darkness permitted. The fauna here was denser, thick vines snaking around the trees, hanging from them in thick loops. Nocturnal creatures hooted and shrieked, sounding much closer here than they'd done back at the camp. Giving in to the trembling in his legs, which had begun to ache, he crouched down just at the bottom of the slope, partially obscured by the dense plant-life lining the edges of the recessed entrance from the main route to the pathway. Afrit returned to him from the blackness without, sitting next to him with her sparkling tongue lolling out, rolling her head into his hands for a nuzzle.<br/>'<em>We're into the wilds now, ey girl?' </em>he thought, and Afrit wagged her tail in response, looking at him joyfully with her source-infused eyes shimmering like two orbs.<br/>'<em>Nothing like the open road.</em>'</p><p class="western">A rustle emitted from behind them, revealing Sebille's slim face as it seemed to glide, disembodied, towards the spot in which they sat. Her armour was almost invisible; Ifan caught only the smallest sheen from the moon's reflection in it. She extended a hand, only her fingertips visible from the ends of her gloves as she reached to help him up. Permitting her to help him up, his eyes went to her face. She seemed calm and composed, but she wasn't exactly an open book.<br/>Keeping hold of her hand, he asked her, "So...how was it?"<br/>Silence for a while. She spoke her next words evenly, but did not meet his eyes.<br/>"Lone Wolves attacked a foraging party when they took over the old sawmill, about week since. Some were slain outright, some lingered. The tribe has been decimated; it will take them much time to recover from this loss, if that is possible at all after such an event."<br/>Ifan froze.<br/>His mind spun. Her demeanour was completely at odds with the news she had just relayed to him.<br/>Unable to make himself attempt to meet her gaze, he simply stood, staring down at his boots.<br/>Afrit whined and rubbed against Sebille's shins, and she raised a hand to run along the wolf's glowing coat, each hair illuminated with a tiny drop of shining Source.<br/>Finding his nerve, Ifan looked up at her face and she met his gaze.<br/>Eyes blazing, her face was a visage of white-hot rage and determination.<br/>"They will <em>pay,</em>" she snarled.<br/>What could he do but nod?</p><hr/>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Grudge the Gossip</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Plans go awry and a familiar face is encountered. <br/>[Thanks to @https://www.deviantart.com/fluffypallas for their fan-art.]</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="western">They walked back to camp in amidst a weighty silence, making their way back more slowly than they'd come though dawdling by no means. After a considerable time, Sebille spoke up, remarking lightly,<br/>
"Well, at least <em>the team</em>" she emphasised darkly, "will be happy to know we've found the sawmill."<br/>
"What?" Ifan's mind was pulled from its' own train of thought, and it took him a second to connect the dots. "Wait, you're saying that the temple is near the Lone Wolves' hideout?"</p><p class="western">Sebille bit back an acerbic response, tasting her own blood before she forced herself, not for the first time that night, to speak to him in measured tones.<br/>
"Not more than an hour or two's run away. I'm surprised you couldn't smell them."<br/>
Darkness spared Ifan the detection of his blushes. Truth was, that hadn't exactly been at the forefront of his thoughts tonight. Her unusual display of feelings combined with the first taste of real freedom he and Afrit had experienced together in a long time had chased all thoughts of the mission at hand from his mind.<br/>
'<em>Maybe I </em>am<em> going soft,'</em> he thought, wincing slightly.</p><p class="western">They continued on, their steps acclimatising to a steady, companionable rhythm as they traversed out from the forest to the edge of the fields, reaching the campsite, where a single candle flickered in the absolute stillness of the pre-dawn. Fane didn't look up as they returned, unfastening their weapons to sit at the heathstones of the extinguished fire.<br/>
"Good romping, I hope. Anyway, seeing as you're <em>both</em> back," he said in his usual rude tone, rising to leave.<br/>
They let him go; the night had been long enough without rattling that particular bag of bones more than necessary, whether he technically needed the sleep or not.</p><p class="western">
  
</p><p class="western">After he'd disappeared into his tent, Ifan lightly brushed his hand against Sebille's, gesturing with his free hand towards the wicker cocoon with a quirk of his bushy eyebrows before creeping across into its' recesses and stretching out. Her light footfall soon followed and she crept in next to him, curling into a ball facing him, her long thing arms wrapped tightly around her bony knees. He brushed a thick lock of hair away from her eyes and she held his hand to her face, burying her cheek in his palm and swallowing a couple of choked sobs before the storm of emotions released her.<br/>
"Dear one," he murmured, stroking along her cheekbone, trying to comfort her, "dear one, shh."</p><p class="western">His words failed him again, so he contented himself with murmuring endearments to her, rocking the tight ball of her slim body in his arms. She made no further sound or movements, permitting his attentions but neither inviting nor responding to them. He had no idea if he'd slept in intermittent short bursts, but at some point dawn once again beat its' bright drum, and, weary as he was, his very being danced to that irrefutable cosmic beat. Sebille lay in the exact same position, tightly drawn up, eyes closed. He gently shook her awake, shifting away from her to begin packing up. She whimpered and turned to face the back of the hut; clearly, mornings were not her best time. Especially not with the kind of night that she'd had.<br/>
Ifan cast his mind back over the preceding night as he stowed his supplies and went through the by-now automatic process of packing away the assorted baggage and securing the area ahead for traps.</p><p class="western">
  <em>Did he really almost let himself get gutted through sheer reckless abandon?<br/>
Did his old pack really slaughter a rag-tag bunch of defenseless elves, just for kicks?<br/>
Were his party members in danger of their moods turning mutinous if things didn't work out the way he'd outlined in Driftwood?<br/>
Most vitally, was he really falling -</em>
</p><p class="western">"Morning, chief!" Lohse had managed to sneak up on him.<br/>
'<em>Definitely going soft,</em>' he groaned internally, turning to greet her with a quick grin and a wave.<br/>
Pulling a chunk from a generously-sized bread roll, she stuffed it hungrily into her mouth and surveyed him while she chewed. Swallowing, she pulled off another hunk and offerered the remainder of the roll to him. He reached for it, thanking her with a nod and a smile, holding it in both hands and tearing into it with his teeth. He finished it off quickly, stuffing it into his mouth and brushing the crumbs from his tunic before scanning the horizon quickly.<br/>
"We're closer than I thought to the sawmill. Roost and the boys probably have wind of us by now; we'd better put in a show today."<br/>
He didn't add his darker suspicion, '<em>or they might come after us first.</em>'<br/>
"Sure thing, boss." Lohse saluted with a flourish, dark eyes shining with irreverence.<br/>
"Hey there," Ifan protested with a throaty chuckle, "cut <em>that</em> -", he mock saltued her in return, "-out. I'm not that man any more."<br/>
"So I can see..." Her tone was honeyed, but he detected a hint of menace in her response.<br/>
He turned sharply to face her. "Meaning <em>what</em> exactly? Stow the shit Lohse, and spill it. I don't have time for your coyness right now."<br/>
A touch of malice twisted her sublime features.<br/>
"Well, I didn't want to mention, you seemed so -", she paused, looking into his eyes and reading the set of his face, selecting her next words with precision, "- <em>smitten </em>with the lanky elf oddball, it seemed too cruel to...no, I shan't."<br/>
Shutting her rosebud mouth like a trap, pursing her lips together and watching him closely, Lohse counted out the seconds of silence, leaving it one, two, three...<br/>
"<em>Lohse.</em>" Ifan's low growl contained the perfect note of anguish.<br/>
"Look, I really shouldn't be saying, but you know, she's not <em>entirely</em> who she says she is. I really can't say more, it's all rumours and whispers, but then again -", she looked over her shoulder, lowering her voice conspiratorially, "- is it really such a surprise with <em>her ?</em>"<br/>
He paused, considering, looking at her with wary, wounded eyes.<br/>
"You're <em>sure</em> you can't say more about...this?" He waved his hand in the direction of where he'd left Sebille, keeping his voice as low as he could manage whilst still remaining audible to Lohse.<br/>
"We've formed a certain, well, affinity for one another since Fort Joy."<br/>
"Ah," trilled Lohse, "I see! I thought you'd perked up since, ah, the <em>unfortunate business.</em> Worried we'd lose you there for a few years, and after seeing you slumming it up in Fort Misery, well..."<br/>
Her black irises peered at him deeply as her face crumpled into one of exaggerated pity, pouting and batting her eyes subtly, continuing in a lulling tone, "...as an old, <em>dear</em> friend, it hurts me to see you..." she paused for effect, lowering her voice to a whisper, "...<em>throw</em> yourself at her."<br/>
Straightening a little, resolving her face to one of righteous indignation, she concluded ardently.<br/>
"She's a traitor amongst elves, and I wouldn't think she has much regard for any life, human or otherwise, judging by the role-call of the violently deceased on her arm."<br/>
Ifan winced, her voice ringing out far too loud across the campsite, turning to look behind them.<br/>
'<em>Fuck.</em>'</p><p class="western">Of <em>course</em> she'd have chosen that moment to move into view.<br/>
She'd heard, all right. She stood, pack hosited onto her slim shoulders, ready and waiting for them.<br/>
Shooting Lohse a reproachful look, he approached Sebille tentatively and she turned, striding into the forest without glancing back.<br/>
'<em>Shit.</em>' Ifan thought, pushing down panic, <em>'she's going to get herself killed.'<br/>
</em>"Lohse! Get Fane and get ready, poste haste, follow the road east until the junction, then north, the sawmill's no more than four hours away, in case we get separated."<br/>
She smirked but didn't reply.</p><p class="western">Throwing the rest of the belongings together, hands and limbs a blur of action, he grabbed his pack, and, without even bothering to alert Fane this time, raced after the vengeful elf.</p><p class="western">He caught up with her within half an hour, panting from the effort, Afrit bounding alongside, glistening tongue lolling. Sensing him behind her, she took her focus from the path before her, going to look behind her, taking a step ahead without thinking.<br/>
Seeing the poison trap too late to warn her, he called out her name just as the pressure of her foot released the mechanism; a toxic cloud engulfed her as their eyes met for a brief flash, her fear apparent even in that small glimpse. Memories overloaded Ifan's brain, playing out before his eyes even as he knew he must act. The swirling miasma, so close, he felt himself begin to choke as the fog seeped over him, but now he was outside the cloud, somehow on his knees, fists balled by his sides. He breathed heavily, pushing his hands to his knees, and forced himself to stand.</p><p class="western">Then, with a blur of source light, Afrit emerged from the cloud, dragging a choking Sebille after her. Pulling the elf to his feet, she nuzzled at her, licking at her face and fingers, Sebille's green-veined skin sucking rivulets of source from Afrit's tongue as she did so. Ifan knelt beside her, reaching into his pack and applying a small bottle of antidote to her chalk-white lips, tipping the contents down her ashen throat. The colour began to return after a few minutes, and she struggled to sit up, reaching for Afrit gratefully before looking up at Ifan with a confused expression.<br/>
"Why did you come? Either way, we walk into a viper's nest. I would rather die alone than be traded again like slave-flesh, only to die later."<br/>
"Uskeche, I hope you know by now that I'd not double-cross you," he intoned urgently, "besides which, I explained the plan from the beginning, and you were the first at that table to agree."</p><p class="western">More colour returned to her face as the antidote did its' work, and with it, her fury.<br/>
"I <em>heard</em> you." There was no softness or pleading in her timbre, just steel and rage.<br/>
"What you heard wasn't..." He trailed off, realising he needed to stop digging this particular hole, and changed tack.<br/>
"Me and Lohse go way back, Order days, I was stationed around Arx just around the time she started to get well-known, years ago I saw her play a few times. She's..."<br/>
Picking his words carefully here, he cautiously continued, "...well she's frankly worried that an old salt like me is embarrassing himself by, uh, pursuing someone whom she thinks could <em>potentially</em> kill me. And her. Possibly everyone."<br/>
Adding the last bit with a small grin, he dared steal a glance at her.<br/>
'<em>Inscrutable as ever,</em>' he groaned inwardly.</p><p class="western">Then she laughed, a tinkling sound that sounded like wind chimes and breaking glass, throwing her head back and wiping her eyes.<br/>
"Good. She is right. She is a good friend. Come," she said in an amused voice, holding out her hand.<br/>
"Lead the way, that poison trap is an experience that I am keem to avoid repeating."<br/>
Treading with utmost care, keeping his sharp eyes fixed on the ground as he weaved them expertly through the minefield, they came to large wooden walls, with empty sentry posts built into them.<br/>
"Here we go," said Ifan with satisfaction, shaking aside a hidden catch in a compartment within a section of wall to release a rope ladder from the closest sentry post.<br/>
"Get up there and stay hidden until I get back; I need to make sure the others don't miss their footing, either. If danger finds you, howl for me."<br/>
His eyes widen as he realises what he's just said, then his face reddened with a dark flush and he moved away from her with an embarrassed cough, raising a hand to her in departure as he slunk away to find where Fane and Lohse had got to.</p>
<hr/>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Flies to Honey</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="western">Far behind them Fane and Lohse had set off slowly, taking their time, avoiding the melodrama that had been playing out between their companions since they left Driftwood. One could've cut the atmosphere around those two with a knife, especially over the last few days. It was, frankly, wearing on them both, for wildly different reasons, but they'd both sensed it, and Fane chose this moment, while they were alone together, to confront the issue.</p><p class="western">"Say," he began breezily, "<em>not</em> that it's my concern, or even that I really <em>care, </em>but I assume you've noticed our erstwhile commander's slight <em>distraction</em> since we've been out on the road?"<br/>His voice dripped with derision, as if the whole fleshy affair was far beneath what his enlightened wisdom could consider anything but distateful and slightly barbaric.<br/>Lohse had no doubt this was the case; the immortal-supremacist had been waxing lyrical about the myriad failings of mortal races since they'd first met aboard the Lady Vengeance on the way to Fort Joy. It was fairly exhausting to have to listen to, but not, she had to admit to herself, as bad as watching ben Mezd go gooey over some psychotic elf.</p><p class="western">"Yeah, I guess. What of it?" Lohse wasn't in the mood for games.<br/>The passenger in her head was getting stronger by the day, beginning to thread dark tendrils into her mind, probing at the edges of her sanity. Besides which, her feet were sore, the pack was heavy, she hadn't had a hot meal since they'd left Driftwood and the bright sun was just reaching its' peak in the azure sky.<br/>Stopping to adjust the weight on her pack on her shoulders, she wiped one hand across her brow, sweeping the sweat from her brow and covering her eyes against the glare. Fane also stopped, waiting for her to lead the way, no more enthused about the ardures of the journey than she.<br/>"It appears to me that old ben Mezd's rather gone and lost his head," Fane rhymed in a sing-song tone.<br/>The sound of the phrase appealed to her, rousing a giggle from her chest.</p><p class="western">"Ra<em>ther</em>. You know," she said, turning to his robed figure for a moment before glancing away again, for even in the noonday light and fully caped he was oddly eerie to behold for long, "Ifan once told me he'd been raised by the elves. I was playing a gig, long time ago, funnily enough not far from Arx, little place though, you wouldn't know it. Well, despite this, the tavern wasn't so poky after all, and somehow a crowd of hundreds of people heard and the place was so mobbed they had to bring the church pews out to the square for the patrons! It was quite a sight. Anyway." She broke off, and then continued with a self-conscious gesture of her hand.<br/>"Who should stroll over to me after I'd finished the -", she pauses dramatically for effect, "-<em> third </em>encore, our friend and leader. Conversations," and Fane noticed an odd lilt to the word as she said it, "were had, and yeah, he said he'd grown up in the homelands after his parents died. He was drunk as a lord, mind, but seeing them together, I do wonder..."</p><p class="western">"That would certainly explain a few things," quipped Fane sardonically, but his mind was whirring with recalculations. If this piece of information was true, he'd made one massive oversight when agreeing to join up with some of his fellow Godwoken; not mining them for personal backstories sooner.<br/>'<em>Drat,</em>' he realised, '<em>I could have saved myself a lot of time and bother if I'd just paid proper attention to the information right in front of me. The evidence staring me in the face. Oh well, nevermind.</em>'<br/>Lohse, looking torn between the options of slinging her pack to the floor and sitting on it, or bearing up and marching onwards. After a moments' deliberation, the latter choice won out in her, and she took a few tottering steps along the path, asking Fane, "say, have you heard the one about the elf, the dwarf and the voidwoken hatchling in the broom cupboard...?"</p><p class="western">Summoning Afrit once out of sight, Ifan returned the way he'd come, stepping carefully across the field of traps with the graceful step of a hunter, moving as soundlessly as possible lest the Wolves had an eyeline on his position. Beyond the dangerous obstacle course, he and Afrit began to run, leaning into their stride and bursting through the forest undergrowth at speed, attempting to reach the party and pull them together again before disaster befell any of them. They were stronger together, as a unit. That's mainly what being in the pack had been about, for him, though the money hadn't seemed bad. At first.</p><p class="western">Still, if the Wolves caught any one of them alone, that individual would be digging their own grave before feeling the thudding kiss of a crossbow bolt in the back of their skull.<br/>Ifan had seen this happen. Once or twice he'd been the man to the bow.<br/>He'd rather that fate didn't befall any of his comrades, at his hands or theirs.<br/>Afrird yapped at him from his side, alerting him to the sight of Fane and Lohse up ahead.</p><p class="western">He slowed his pace to a jog, reaching them with a wave and an out-of-breath, "there you's are."<br/>Clearing his throat and waiping his nose, Ifan continued, "I was wondering how long you'd take. Lucky for me that you're so slow," he looks them over with an approving grin, ensuring they don't take it to heart.<br/>"Came back to warn you; traps ahead. Sebille caught her foot on a poisoncloud one, and I don't know," and here he addressed Fane with a note of warning in his voice, "how many <em>different</em> types could be rigged up out there. The Wolves are generally well-prepared to inflict any type or amount of damage to secure their aims, especially when it comes to defending their territory. You'd both do well to tread carefully. When I say, follow my lead and I'll guide you through."</p><p class="western">Lohse had been tapping her fingers on her thigh impatiently while he spoke, and, sensing he'd come to a natural pause, quickly interjected in tones of concern, "Is she O.K?"<br/>Ifan looked at her for a beat with veiled admiration, then nodded, "there are a few sentry points up ahead, surplus to the Wolves' requirements, from back when the sawmill was commercially operating. She's safely hidden and waiting for us; I told her it'd be best to enter together, safety in numbers, you get the picture. It's about..."<br/>He paused and looked at them, tilting his head in a lopsided grin, "...oh, about an hour up ahead, your pace, I'd say."</p><p class="western">Ninety minutes later, if any of them had a pocketwatch with which to measure, the trio realighted upon the spot where Ifan and Sebille had been some time before, stilling their friendly chatter as Ifan grew thoughtful and silent. Throwing out an arm to his side, he gestured for them to stop.<br/>Pointing out the casing of the trap which had almost felled Sebille, he instructed quietly,<br/>"Follow my footsteps <em>precisely</em> and you'll be fine. Tread light, go slow, and try to keep your damn balance if something <em>does</em> go off; if one of us tumbles it'll trigger the lot, and we'll arrive at the Hall of Echoes in bits."</p><p class="western">Moving carefully forward, Ifan led the wobbling Fane and light-stepped Lohse through the valley of death, all of them reaching the sentry post next to which the ladder hung. Ifan ascended first, calling out in a low but carrying voice about two-thirds of the way up, "...uskeche, success. Now for the next step."</p><p class="western">Hearing no response, he quickened his pace, the old rope creaking a little as he hauled himself upwards, the first knots of dread starting to twist his guts. Clearing the remainder of the ladder, he pulled himself onto the platform, knees first, pushing himself up with a grunt to come face to face with, rather than the scarred yet lovely face of his elven companion, the booze-swollen nose and halitosis-ridden breath of a new face, mugging at him with a moronic expression on his lumpen face.</p><p class="western">Opening his ugly flap of a mouth, he barked, "Silver Claw?"<br/>Ifan nodded, pulling out a small wolf's claw from a pocket within his tunic and wordlessly holding it out for the man to appraise.<br/>"...and you are?"<br/>With a grunt of satisfaction with man nodded before answering.<br/>"You probably wouldn't remember me, but you saved my life in a skirmish at Tamber Brook. The name's Pigsbane."<br/>The corpulent man's face shone with hero-worship as he said, "I've, uh, still got the hanky that you gave me to wrap my big toe in."<br/>Ifan returned the trinket to his pocket for safekeeping as the aesthetically-impaired man slouching before him grinned, moving slightly forward, a leer exposing a few remaining rotten teeth.<br/>"Best we head back to camp now. Roost's been waiting for you."</p><hr/>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. About Face</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>It turns out that no matter how close you keep your friends, you should always keep your old friends closer.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="western">Ifan tried to conceal his reflexive gulp of dismay and surprise with a hearty greeting, slapping Pigsbane on the back and inquiring after his and his former friends' health and doings for a few, long minutes, making the old sot feel at ease while his own tension only mounted.</p><p class="western">"Say, did you happen to see an elf around here? Godwoken, nasty scarred-up face, scrawny build?"<br/>He forced his tone to be rough, gruff, the unaffected talk of a hardened mercenary.</p><p class="western">The sot nodded effusively at him.<br/>"Yeh, boss saw her bobbin' about up here 'nd sent us to take a wee looksie, me 'n couple of the boys came down, shame ya missed 'em, it was a right scene. Took the three of us to take 'er down, she half-killed on of 'em while we were tryin'a get the ties on 'er, vicious little bitch."<br/>He spits a globbet of phlegm off the side of the tower, thoughtfully adding, "...mind you, if we're gonna be keepin' 'er 'ere for a wee while, it'd be a shame not to have some fun with 'er, there's still a half-decent face under that scar, although we could always," he turned to Ifan with a nasty glint in his eye, "...finish the job of wotever done that to 'er. <em>After</em> the fun."</p><p class="western">The way he said the word ,'<em>fun</em>', along with the entirety of the sentiment that Pigsbane had just expressed, made Ifan's blood burn in his veins. Fighting to keep his face neutral, he was desperate to check whether Fane and Lohse still waited below and he badly needed some time to think.<br/>Ifan covered his unutterable disgust with a louche snort, "Pah. Not for me." He shut him down fast, softening the rebuttal with a joking tone.<br/>"Keep your gory self-pleasure fantasies to yourself in future," he winked, nudging the man playfully in his enourmous, fleshy forearm. The misshapen face leered gormlessly for minute before he expelled a grouchy grunt,</p><p class="western">"Suit yourself ben Mezd, more to go round for us." He winked back unpleasantly and passed wind noisily, chuckling the old adage, "Better out than in, aye?"</p><p class="western">Ifan was having a hard time keeping his composure around this repugnant individual, and took a chance, peeking over the side of the tower down to where Fane and Lohse had been. Lohse's eyes, wide and confused, met his and she made a silent, questionning gesture up at him. Glancing back at the ugly Lone Wolf, who'd looked out to the horizon while his pudgy pinky finger explored a nostril interestedly, Ifan gestured for the other two to keep down and stay hidden. Turning back to the ogre-like man before him, he said, "Well, not that the view's not spectacular up here, not to mention the company, but I'd imagine Roost's wondering after me, shouldn't we be getting back to the mill?"<br/>"'Kay then," came the reply.</p><p class="western">Ifan glanced behind him at the ladder, seeing no sign of Fane and Lohse now, and headed down, shouting up at his erstwhile-shadow, "Don't come down <em>yet, </em>you great fool, give an old man a moment!"<br/>The hulking brute did as he was told, peering over the side until Ifan and reached the bottom and scaling the length of the ladder, faster than his bulky size belied.<br/>"Right you are then, follow me." Not a mite out of breath, Ifan let himself be led through the maze of booby-traps surrounding the Lone Wolf compound, subtly gesturing his hand to his side to let his hidden comrades know to follow close at hand. Within ten minutes they'd come to a long bridge across another rocky ravine, open and extended, the mechanism alongside rusted and presumably broken.<br/>Sitting atop the wooden fort-like structure on the far side sat a group of men whom Ifan recognised well.<br/>Most of them he remembered from his Lone Wolf days, with a few familiar faces gone and replaced with new cubs, probably just like the man who led him across the bridge and into their lair with a sarcastic sweep of his arm.<br/>"Well, here we are. Best not dawdle, boss'll be waiting up the stairs in't office." [name required] went to rejoin his companions to whoops and claps on the shoulders. Ifan raised a hand in hail to the assembled Wolves on the bridge, but their feral eyes did not return his greeting, even those faces whom he'd known for many moons. Something didn't feel right, here.<br/><br/>Glancing back across the bridge, Ifan caught a flicker of fiery hair around the side of a medium-sized boulder and gestured, '<em>back down</em>' as subtly as he could before he turned away, walking at a leisurely pace towards where he'd been directed, heading directly to the unguarded stairs.<br/>Pausing at their foot with a sense of alarm rising, Ifan leapt up them two at a time.<br/>Something <em>definitely</em> didn't feel right.<br/>He pushed his shoulder hard against the hatch, expecting more resistance than he met.<br/>Bursting through into the antechamber of the room above the sawmill with a loud crash, Ifan saw his old boss through the open connecting doorway, the one and only Roost Anlon, standing at the far end from him, facing the diamond-latticed window and chewing thoughtfully on a bloody, white-ish glob of flesh.<br/>In front of the desk, tied and blindfolded in the centre of the room and guarded by Roosts' two trained wolves, Sebille and the elf he recognised from the caves in Fort Joy sat silently back to back.<br/><br/>At the crash of his entrance, Roost turned to face him.<br/>"Silver Claw! You've finally returned!"<br/>Roost flicked the gobbet of flesh over to the captive elves.<br/>"It don't work for me, you try, <em>elf</em>," he said with a threat in his voice.<br/>Sebille's jaw twitched beheath her blindfold at the mention of Ifan's moniker, but she remained silent, spitting away the chunk of meat when Roost attempted to force it past her clenched teeth. He aimed a lazy kick at one of her slender thighs, muddying the skin with his heavy boots. The force knocked her to the ground, and Ifan felt his jaw tense in restraint as the other man turned to him with a snort.<br/>"Bloody <em>elves</em>, I'm tellin' ya."<br/>Squaring up to full height and looking Ifan in the eye, Roost's pale-blue bloodshot glare confirmed his earlier misgivings. "Some <em>interesting</em> news going round, Silver Claw. How much do you know about the latest big contract?"<br/>Ifan forced himself to shrug. "I've been away."<br/>Roost continued as if he hadn't spoken.<br/>"<em>Godwoken</em> contract, steady work, the Whites reached out about a month ago for our, uh," he leered, "<em>particular</em> talents in such areas."<br/>His stained hand moved to his sword as he finished his statement; "Word is, you're one of those Voidwoken-summoning <em>sourcerers.</em> We've history, so today I'll let you walk away, but our paths better not cross again in this world or the next."</p><hr/>
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<a name="section0015"><h2>15. Fight or Flight</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="western">Dismissing Ifan with an imperious wave of his hand, he turned his back and returned the focus of his attention to the elves, and the piles of flesh strewn on the floor around them. That was his mistake.~</p><p class="western">'<em>Act now!</em>'</p><p class="western">A strong, foreign-feeling force commanded him, the words tasting unfamiliar as they rang sonorously through his mind. All of a sudden, he knew what he must do.<br/>Swivelling his crossbow around his shoulder swiftly and silently, Ifan loaded a bolt in as quickly as he could, taking the merest second to aim it at the base of Roost's skull before he fired.<br/>Gore from the bloody pulp of his face splattered over the two elves on the floor, Roost slumping across them and twitching out his death throes. Sebille repaid him the kick as he fell, sending his body rolling to the side.</p><p class="western">In the merest instant, the two wolves sprang up, hackles raised and teeth bared. The snarled at him,<br/>'<em>You kill Master. You die now.'<br/></em>Ifan's hands fumbled to reload another bolt in his bow as he replied, baring his teeth back at them and not breaking eye contact, even to blink,<br/>'<em>I kill Master, I am new Master.'<br/></em>Carefully, crossbow trained upon them, he reaches around in a pocket and produces a paper-wrapped wad of meat, tossing the contents to their feet.<em><br/></em>They snapped at each other for a second, jostling over the scrap and conferring, before sniffing his hands, giving them a small submissive lick and circling Roost's fallen body, pawing at his abdomen, starting to try with their noses to get beneath his leather armour to the meal beneath.<br/>'<em>That,</em>' thought Ifan to himself wryly, '<em>is the problem with mortal wolves. Simple heirarchy. Total puppies. No use for anything but brute strength and looking like the Big Cheese.'</em></p><p class="western">Sebille called out to him, "Ifan. You found us. Now cut the bonds!"<br/>He knelt next to the bloodied elves and pulled a shiv from his boot, cutting their bonds and removing their blindfolds, freeing the younger-looking elf first before turning to Sebille. When he was done and they'd rubbed their sore wrists for a few delicious seconds of relief, Sebille introduced him to the other girl.<br/>"This is Saheila, she was captured by the same men who slew the elves in the forest. She is their tribe's seer."<br/>Saheila bowed her head to him in thanks, smiling warmly at him as she spoke.<br/>"Thank-you, Ifan ben Mezd, for coming to my aid. I know that you did not come here for me, but you came with your heart on your sleeve and saved me also. You have my deepest gratitude. Now, I must return to by tribe. Is the way safe?" she asked.</p><p class="western">"Not so much." Ifan grimaced. "There's maybe five that I saw on the way in, they've got eyes on the whole square, plus there'll be a couple kicking about elsewhere if I know the Lone Wolves. It'd be suicidal for either of you to go out there."<br/>"Then what?" Sebille's tone was sharp and urgent, demanding a solution.<br/>Ifan thought, hard. There didn't seem to be an easy solution. Having gotten into the sawmill almost like he'd planned, getting out again was the part that he'd neglected to map out in advance. Here they were, with precious seconds ticking away until someone came up wanting to talk to the boss, who was currently face-down in a pool of his own blood.</p><p class="western">He paced, surveying the room. It contained cupboards in the corners to either side of the window, where there was a large desk in between. Against one wall was a tall piece of furniture covered in a large black cloth. Pulling it aside, Ifan revealed a mirror shaped in a way which was reminiscent of a large eye, the shaded, smoky glass seeming to absorb the light rather than reflect it.<br/>He covered it again hastily, a hot prickle sending the hairs on his neck and hands standing on end. Something <em>malevolent</em>, he felt, had just looked inside of him.<br/>Ifan was no stranger to guilt, but never before in his life had he felt so <em>unclean.<br/></em>Giving his head a little shake to clear the feeling, he turned to Sebille with a hard set to his jaw.</p><p class="western">"Way I see it, we've got options still. One; you and Saheila wait here while I try to distract the Wolves, then you take her and I'll meet you back at the temple."<br/>He paused, allowing his mind to drift back to what had followed their midnight jaunt, her sorrow and rage, and realised he couldn't bring himself to say what it would take to persuade them. He'd sold out enough already.</p><p class="western">"Two. We fight out way out. Fane and Lohse are just beyond the bridge to the south. If I can get to them before the Wolves realise what's going on, they can mount an offensive from the bridge and draw off their line of sight from us while I sneak you and Saheila out the back way to the west. Then I'll double back and pincer them. It'll be close, but it's our best chance."</p><p class="western">Saheila, listening solemnly and nodded once, but remained silent.</p><p class="western">Sebille, on the other hand, spun to him in a flash, eyes furious as she hissed at him.<br/>"<em>Crazy</em> man. Your recklessness got us in here, you cannot ask me to leave without getting to personally spill their blood. After what they <em>did</em> to us. <em>Traako." </em>She spat on the ground with a vulgar gesture at him, staring him down, daring him to deny her the sport of killing them.<br/>"I shall think, now. You shall draw a map, for Saheila."<br/>Crumpling her face at her own stupidity, she waved the idea away.<br/>"No, wait, never mind. We sneak her out by secret way, then <em>both</em> return."</p><p class="western">Ifan blinked, slightly afraid, both of and for her. The fierce determination which blazed in her eyes brooked no rejection. "Still got a couple of those vials?" he asked.<br/>"They put my possessions somewhere, I do not know where, I have a few," she replied, frowning.</p><p class="western">Saheila, silent for so long, spoke up unexpectedly.<br/>"Your heart is kind, ben Mezd. From the bottom of mine, thank-you. I see the way, now. All will be well."<br/>Her smile was beautific and calm, standing amongst the blood and gore as if in a meadow full of wildflowers.</p><p class="western">Ifan blushed as he realised she'd read his thoughts. '<em>A seer.</em> <em>Of course.</em>'<br/>He'd heard of elves like her, and had always thought it'd spook him to meet one, but actually being in her presence felt immeasurably soothing, as if her quiet insight carried a soothing certainty, even in complete silence.</p><p class="western">Then it came to him; he'd seen a pile of packs on his way through the mill. They were on the way to the western route. The heist was on.</p><hr/>
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<a name="section0016"><h2>16. Shadowfoot and Silver Claw</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="western">They snuck downstairs, leaving the hatch propped open behind them as Ifan led the way.<br/>At the foot of the stairs they paused, crouching low in the recess between the stairs, and he turned to them, pointing with a small gesture to a narrow alleyway opposite the central compund from them. In between was a long corridoor which opened onto to a wide deck with steps at the far end.<br/>Upon the deck sat a lizard and a human in reclined positions next to a drudanae pipe, chatting languidly as they blew the occasional smoke ring.<br/>Ifan knew them as Snakeroot and Honeyhook; they'd joined shortly before he'd set off on his journey, having been assigned to kill Alexander. Honeyhook in particular he found distinctly <em>un</em>threatening, but he knew from personal experience that nobody tangled with the Wolves without getting scarred, at least in a manner of speaking.</p><p class="western">Motioning for the two elves to stay put, Ifan crept around the corner and straightened his posture, attempting to affect a normal stance as he strode towards the Wolf-laden bridge. Raising his hand again as he came into view of them, he called out to them,<br/>"Boss's told me to go fetch the other Godwoken I've been hunting; they're stashed nearby, I'll be back by sundown." Ifan tried to roar cheerily, striding towards them as his palms sweated and heart pounded. "And save some of the grog for my return, ya damn animals!"</p><p class="western">Their hands were already going to their weapons.<br/>The burly, foul-breathed man who'd escorted him earlier yelled back,<br/>"Not so fast! We know <em>all</em> about <em>you, </em>Godwoken. Not happy to wipe out those filthy elves and be done with it, eh? Now you're bringing down Voidwoken and threatening us <em>all.</em>" The dramatic irony was clearly the most delicious the fool had known in his miserable life, such was the excessive verbal emphasis given to his words.<br/>'<em>Pigsbane could have been planning this little speech for weeks</em>,' thought Ifan wryly.<br/>The assembled men drew their weapons, two of the men at ground level, swords held threateningly, began to advance, circling around to flank him.<br/>Giving up all pretenses, he quickly muttered an incantation and hunched over, summoning Afrit, straightening to shout across the bridge to his hidden companions in a desperate bellow, "<em>NOW!</em>"</p><p class="western">His soul wolf let out a haunting howl and leapt onto one of the sword-wielding men, aiming for his throat as Ifan spun, anticipating the lizards' silent attacks a second before he felt a dagger slice past his face, glancing off his armour with a '<em>ting</em>'. He ducked behind a cart and pulled his crossbow to face front, snapped a bolt into place and aimed at the second sword-wielder. The shot glanced off the man's helmet and Ifan rolled out of the way and grabbed the shiv from his boot, as the other man lunged forward, thrusting for the weak point of armour at Ifan's armpit.<br/>With a wild lunge, Ifan drove the shiv blindly upwards, hearing a scream as the man's hands reflexively dropped his sword, moving to the shiv embedded in his leg through his light leather breeches, the tip deep in his thigh. Seconds bought, Ifan scrambled around the side of the cart as the first arrows from the sentry-towers on the bridges whizzed past.<br/>Knowing that it wasn't long until they notched their bows with more than just steel-tipped arrows, he took the chance to slot another bolt into his bow, moving backwards in a crouch. The man he'd stabbed was still on the ground around the side of the cart. Ifan moved in a flash, standing up, leaning back around the corner, and unloaded the bolt into the man's neck at close range before dodging back into obscurity in the shadow of the enourmous cart.</p><p class="western">'<em>Two down,' </em>he thought, '<em>where </em>are <em>they?' </em>he added of his companions, consternation rippling through him.<br/>Poking his head around from his concealed position, he saw that the sentry guards were no longer firing at his position.</p><p class="western"><em>'Yes!</em>' His heart felt like it would burst, pumping with adrenaline, pride and the hope of triumph.<br/>Just then, he heard the sleepy-sounding tones of the drudanae-stoned duo, chatting in bored tones around the corner from him.</p><p class="western">"I know, I'm so tired of these mongrels. Intruder, they said. Looked like a Lone Wolf to me, I told him, and besides, I took my shot when I had it, but he's most likely fled anyway."<br/>"It's such a <em>hassle</em> isn't it? As if it's not enough for us to work the contracts, we've got to jump to their dirty work when we're off-duty too?"<br/>A yell drifted from the bridge, sounding like someone either very angry or in a great deal of pain. Ifan didn't think it sounded like Fane, and it was certainly too low to be Lohse, so he stayed put, continuing to eavesdrop out of sight.</p><p class="western">They didn't seem to be taking the shouting from the bridge seriously, ignoring it completely as they lightly complained about a variety of topics ranging from the poor quality of their food to the lack of local entertainment, as Ifan struggled to conceal both his position and his mirth. Notching another bolt to his bow, he gave a small shake of his head.<br/>'<em>They'll let anyone in these days!' </em>he thought, a bitterly amused twist in his stomach.<br/>They passed by his hiding spot without a glance while he pressed his body into the side of the cart which obscured him from their view, holding his breath as they came within a foot of him.<br/>When they'd walked about six feet ahead of him, in about the same span of time that it takes to inhale and exhale a deep, calming breath, Ifan again leapt, crossbow aiming true, and felled the one he'd heard called Honeyhook.<br/>'<em>Let's see you "climb me like a tree" now,</em>' he glowered with repugnance, as her blood began to seep from the hole in her neck. Belatedly turning to the sound of a body thudding to the ground, Snakeroot's stoned eyes realised, several seconds too late, what the situation she was in had become.<br/>As Ifan fumbled a new bolt into his crossbow she reached for her wands at her belt, raising them and screaming out an incantaion as he took aim and pulled the trigger.<br/>His body was seized by an electric current, and he felt his muscles spasm outwith his control. He could smell smoke, and feel the hot surge of energy burning his skin from the inside out, as if he'd been filled with fire ants. Ifan fell to the ground, twitching, his head abuzz with the fear that he'd choke on his own tongue before the Wolves could finish him off and he could at least die with honour. When the painful convulsions passed him, Ifan rolled over to see the dead lizard keeled over a few feet away, hands still holding her wands, lying face down, a puncture wound from her chest leaking her blood into the sawdust and sand underfoot.</p><p class="western">The sounds from the bridge had increased, as had the volley of yelling which he'd heard.<br/>Scanning to check for other Wolves around him, and seeing none, he stood up into full view, reorienting his gaze to the bridge. The ramparts around it were ablaze, though the bridge itself was still standing for now.<br/>He saw one of the rangers, whom he'd know by the moniker 'Firewater' on account of his penchant for brewing lethal home-made grain spirit, fall from his sniper's nest wreathed in cursed flame, plummeting from the top of the burning wooden structure. The man screamed all the way down to the sharp-toothed ravine below.</p><p class="western">Ifan stashed his bow, pulled the shiv from his roll-top boots and crept back to where Sebille and Saheila waited. He beckoned, making shushing motions at them, indicating for them to stay low and follow him.</p><p class="western">Together, the three crept across the sawmill, throwing quick, guarded glances at the rising pillar of smoke from the bridge, not daring to stop. The crossed the main square without incident, heading right then turning left to venture up a small wooden snicket alongside the Wolves' quarters. It led them to a laddered deck behind the squat wooden building, which looked over the tranquil sea, and as they saw the sun refracting off of the waves, making them glitter with fragmented light, it seemed to the Godwoken that perhaps a benevolent force <em>was</em> looking down upon them.</p><p class="western">Sensing freedom, Saheila smiled at them, her milky eyes gracious. "I go to my people now. Thank-you, Godwoken. May our paths cross again before long."<br/>Sebille touched the smaller elf's arm, and gave her two small vials. "For emergencies, if any arise," she said.<br/>Saheila took them and descended the ladder, crossing swiftly to the fallen tree which bridged the gap between the cliffs and the sea.<br/>Just before the stepped onto it and out of their sight, she turned, waved, and then she was gone.</p><hr/>
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<a name="section0017"><h2>17. The Sky is Crying</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="western">After Saheila had vanished beyond the log bridge Ifan looked to Sebille. She was looking out across the ocean, her grey eyes clear.</p><p class="western">"Let's go, Fane and Lohse seemed to be holding their own but a battle can flip in an instant."</p><p class="western">Saying this, he touched her hand lightly and returned along the corridor which led to the deck. Sebille followed, pulling her daggers out. They turned left as the corridor opened onto the square in the centre and moved steadily, Ifan taking the lead and holding up a clenched fist as they came to an open doorway.</p><p class="western">Inside, a deadly-looking dwarf woman took practice swings of a blood-smattered axe, bringing it down again and again, the air whooshing around it from the force of the velocity.</p><p class="western">Sebille stiffened, recognising the weapon as elven, and pulled her arm back to hurl a dagger into the dwarf woman's spine when her back was turned. Ifan caught her hand with a look of warning.</p><p class="western">He looked back through the doorway and waited with bated breath until her back was to them again, then grabbed Sebille by the hand and hauled her past the open doorway. Beyond, the thick smoke that they could see earlier had morphed into clouds which rained down thick red torrents across the bridge and the ground nearby.</p><p class="western">Sebille stopped short to stare in wonder as the clouds exsanguinated over the battlefield. Ifan had already moved too far beyond her to turn back by the time he noticed her absence at his side. He hastily retreated to the top-most sentry tower, near to where he'd seen Firewater fall from. The platform was no longer aflame, but remained enveloped in smoke, its' supports lightly charred from the conflagration.</p><p class="western">Ifan's lungs protested as they sucked in the first few breaths, but Ifan wasn't the type to be overcome with fumes. The visibility was terrible, but the thought he could make out a couple of slumped bodies roughly where the Wolves' positions had been when he'd crossed the bridge. He couldn't see any of them now, but the blood rain still fell from the sky, feeling as if tiny knives were trying to find their way through his skin. Cursing, he clambered clumsily down the ladder, out from the smoke cloud. There, wreathed in fire and clouds of poison on the closest edge of the bridge, stood a cowled figure.</p><p class="western">'<em>Fane!'<br/></em>Ifan couldn't believe that he was happy to see the irascible Eternal, but it had been a strange sort of day. He looked rather the worse for wear but was still bearing up, raising his staff, which emitted globs of magical poison towards the square. Ifan's gaze followed the trajectory of his teammates' projectile.<br/>It landed amidst some barrels, from which a pained scream then erupted.</p><p class="western">'<em>Gotcha</em>,' he thought, taking an oil-tipped bolt to load into his bow, struggling to balance it as he went to his pocket for his flint, striking it twice before, on the third try, it lit. He took aim, more carefully this time, the arrow finding its' mark amongst the barrels as the poison ignited, causing a massive explosion to boom throughout the sawmill.</p><p class="western">Ifan felt the struts beneath the platform begin to crumble; half-charred, already weakened by the earlier flames, the vibrations from the explosion caused the platform upon which he stood to sway dangerously.<br/>He made for the ladder, but as he did so the whole structure keeled sideways as one of the supports gave way entirely. Pulled downwards in an arc that seemed to take an age, Ifan waited until the last moment before he jumped clear of the impact. Shrapnel and woodchips rained down around him, but he escaped being buried by the collapsing wooden beams. He coughed as the dust settled, the sky above brightening from sore, bruised purple to an azure blue as the rain ceased abruptly. Shakily looking around, Ifan heard only silence as he surveyed the wreckage of corpses, blood and debris.<br/>Fane, picking his way over, raised a hand towards him.</p><p class="western">"That was the last. <em>What</em> you were thinking...regardless, it's done." The Eternal took a strange device from his robes. It had five serrated adjustable blades fastened around a circle of metal, which was the approximate circumference of a human face. Ifan blanched and quickly turned to leave him to it.</p><p class="western">Sebille rushed up to them and asked anxiously, "Where is Lohse?"</p><p class="western">They all searched for the familiar flicker of ginger hair as the smoke cleared, but saw nothing; they called her, but received no response.<br/>Ifan turned to Fane, concerned, "Where did you last have eyes on her?"<br/>Fane shrugged nonchalantly, "She was ahead of me as I recall, but as to how far..." The direction of his cowl jerked towards the rubble of the fallen sentry-tower.</p><p class="western">Sebille hurled herself at the pile first, slinging hunks of wood aside, calling out Lohse's name every now and then. Ifan quickly joined her, helping her to heave logs out of the way. Afrit appeared, whining, and began to dig around an area several feet away. Ifan moved to the spot the wolf indicated and began to wrestle aside the mess of wood and rope, Sebille rapidly coming around the other side of the wolf to aid them. Fane was nowhere to be seen. Just then, Ifan pulled aside a large section of broken flooring to reveal Lohse's crumpled form curled beneath, eyes closed.</p><p class="western">She was bloodied but not crushed. He bent down to ascertain that she was breathing, then hauled her onto his burly shoulder and slowly climbed out from the wreckage, carrying her a few feet away before he carefully laid out her still, limp form. He felt Sebille at his side; turning to her, he asked her with urgency,<br/>"Do you have any healing elixirs on you?" She shook her head, eyes wide with worry.<br/>"O.K, hang on." Ifan closed his eyes and summoned power to his hands, rubbing them together for a few seconds before placing them on Lohse's abdomen and exhaling. Her body twitched, and then she stretched, eyelids fluttering, not regaining consciousness. Some of the faded colour in her lips and cheeks returned as the spell refreshed her, knitting bone and artery as her condition stabilized.<br/>"Will she recover?" Sebille exhibited more anguish over Lohse's state than Ifan had expected. Her voice was choked and feline eyes seemed glassy with unspilt tears. He felt the way she looked.</p><p class="western">As he gently patted Lohse's cheek her blue eyes flickered open to meet his; she frowned and tried to move, then winced in pain. His body flooded with relief and he resisted the urge to sweep her into a bear hug. Those bones needed more rest.</p><p class="western">"Fane!" He barked over to wherever the avaricious old skeleton had got to. "Help us over here, or may the Void take you -!"</p><p class="western">Fane had reappeared at Ifan's shoulder, spooking him. The Eternal held Honeyhook's freshly carved-off face, which looked eerily like a malformed sock puppet.<br/>"No need for that language," he chided, and pulled from the voluminous sleeve of his robe a small red vial of healing elixir. He handed it wordlessly to Ifan, who tipped to bottle to the fallen bards' lips. Lohse's pallor brightened substantially, and she went to stand, swaying a little as she did so. Ifan slung her arm across his shoulder, next beginning to guide her through the bloody scene in the courtyard to the barracks beyond. Sebille took her other arm, and together she and Ifan pulled Lohse into one of the bedrolls as the latter futilely protested, "I'm <em>fine, </em>really! Oh, put me down."</p><p class="western">Her eyes turned a shining black as her head jerked to the corpses and she rasped gutterally, "<strong>I can see them.</strong>"</p><p class="western">Their confusion lasted a beat, then Sebille picked her way to the closest of the fallen. She picked up his limp arm and licked the upside of the brawny wrist. Casting a sly glance around her, she muttered a spell and her eyes glowed bright with source. Surrounding the fallen men, Sebille saw a variety of ghosts, one for each. They seemed angry.</p>
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